Special Feature: Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy Murray Rothbard on the eight dreary _M_ar_ch_19_89_' -F-ou-rD-ol-lar-s years of the Age of Reagan

"'Dear is· Cou:ntryJ but Liberty is dearer stirf. 11 - Latin Proverb "Perhaps the most important economic treatise 0/our time" - WALL STREET JOURNAL

Human Action is the most compelling case for economic freedom ever made. It is the free­ market answer to Marx's Das Kapital and Keynes's General Theory. And it is fascinating. Mises is a cool logician, our greatest economic scholar, a passionate lover of freedom - and a 'passionate hater of those who would take it away from us. Thus Human Action is the economic masterwork of our age - and, at the same time, a soaring hymn to human freedom. Mises has nothing but scorn for the phony "compassion" of the Marxians and Keynesians - because he sees how their theories actually breed suffering. One by one, he sweeps away the dangerous fallacies of liberalism and socialism.

Finally, this book is a warning. Just as man ignores the law of gravity at HUMAN ACTION his peril, so too the immutable laws of economics. Triggers an Explosion of Critical Acclaim As Mises aptly puts it: "I think that Human Action is unquestionably the "It rests with men whether they will make most powerful product of the human mind in our proper use of the rich treasure with which time, and I believe it will change human life for the this knowledge [of economics] provides better during the coming centuries as profoundly as them or whether they will leave it unused. Marxism has changed all our lives for the worse in this century." - Rose Wilder Lane But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warn­ "If any single book can turn the ideological tide that ings, they will not annul economics; they has been running in recent years so heavily toward will stamp our society and the human statism, socialism, and totalitarianism, Human Action race." is that book. It should become the leading text of everyone who believes in freedom, in individualism, and in a free-market economy." - Henry Hazlitt

The economic masterpiece of the "An arsenal of fact and logic for those at war with the century - in an edition worthy Marxists and Fabians." - Chicago Daily News of its c()ntents "Dr. von Mises has made a tremendous contribution to economic thinking in a world that thinks only Revised and updated by the author himself D economics." - Vermont Royster . Massive 924 pages D Comprehensive 21-page "[Mises] offers a combination of great scholarship index D Entirely reset - NOT to be and the rare ability to make an abstruse economic sub­ confused with any previous edition ject interesting." - Lawrence Fertig

"The finest economic treatise of this generation." ­ Raymond Moley How to get this $49.95 masterwork FREE ~------iI•• How the Club Works CONSERVATIVE IIIBOOK CWB Every 4' weeks (13 times a year) you get a free copy of the Club Bulletin, which offers you the Featured Selection plus a good choice of Alternates - all of interest to conservatives. * 15 OAKLAND AVENUE. HARRISON, N.V. 10528 If you want the Featured Selection, do nothing. It will come automatically. * If you don't want the Featured Selection, or you do want an Alternate, indicate your wishes on the handy Please aqcept my membership in the Club and send me, free and card enclosed with your Bulletin and return it by the deadline postpaid, 'Ludwig von Mises' magnum opus, Human Action, in the date. * The majority of Club books will be offered at 20-50% $49.95 Third Edition. I agree to buy 4 additional books at regular Club discounts, plus a charge for shipping and handling. * As soon as you bUy and pay for 4 books at regular Club prices, prices over the next 2 years. I also agree to the Club rules spelled out your membership may be ended at any time, either by you or . in this coupon. LIB - 2 by the Club. * If you ever receive a Featured Selection Name _ without having had 10 days to decide if you want it, you may return it at Club expense for full credit. * Good service. No computers! * The Club will offer regular Superbargains, mostly at 70-90% discounts plus shipping and hand:ing. Address _ Superbargains do NOT count toward fulfilling your Club obligation, but do enable you to buy fine books at giveaway Zip _ L prices. *. Only one membership per household. City -- State ------_ Contents March 1989 Volume 2, Number 4

Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy by Murray N Rothbard, page 13 A Kinder, Gentler Nation? Fear and Loathing in Canada's Elections by Michael!. Krauss, page 23 Guns and Guilt by Allan Levite, page 29 What Do You Do When Your Mother Asks You To Kill Her? by M. H. Endres, page 31 An Environmentalist Contra Rothbard by Daniel M. Karlan, page 35 What If Everything We Know About Safety Is Wrong? by John Semmens and Dianne Kresich, page 37 You Can Go Home Again, But ... by Tibor R. Machan, page 44 The End of Political Activism by Jeffrey Friedman, page 47

Departments • Reflections The Editors "Editorialize," page 9 Reviews David Ramsay Steele on the"Abolition of Work," page 51 Ethan O. Waters on Robert LeFevre, page 57 Stephen Cox on Mario Vargas Llosa, page 61 Jeffrey Tucker on Noam Chomsky, page 63 Charles Curley on Libertarian Diversity, page 64 Letters, page 4 Corrections and Amplifications, page 8 Bob Ortin's "Burons/' page 12 Booknotes, page 67 Classified Advertisements, page 68 Contributors, page 69 Bush ticket ("Better Dukakis Than Bush" . L e tters Liberty, Nov 1988). I inferred from his ' statement of support for the Reagan- [ ] Bush ticket in 1984 that he hadperrna- ~======~_nently abandoned the LP. I am happy to see Hospers return to the LP, and note the refreshing contrast of Hospers' path Mere Lines on a Ballot ic radicalism, based on the idea that free­ to the reverse course of the demented Justin Raimondo's analysis of the fu­ dom, unqualified, offers the hope of un­ members of LROC. It is strikingthat tility ofthe Libertarian Party ("Assessing precedented wealth and opportunity to Justin Raimondo, attacking the Paul cam­ Campaign '88," Liberty, Jan 1989), and people ofall socioeconomic back­ paign for its alleged trafficking with the third party efforts in general, is right on grounds, as well as the prospect of solv­ likes of Pat Robertson and the New the mark. A few years ago I researched ing many of our most persistent social Right, rushes to embrace the Republican the history of political parties in ills. Else the LP will certainly continue to Party, which is presumably free of such America, and reached the same conclu­ toil in obscurity, if it continues to toil at contamination! sions. That was after I had spent three all. G. Duncan Williams years working on Libertarian Party cam­ Jorge Amador Melvin, Iowa paigns. Oh, well. Forest Grove, Penn. Quit Picking on Ron There's a solid legal reason behind A Vote For Evil the persistent failure of third parties in I was disappointed with the criti­ this century. "Progressive" era reforms The attitudes expressed by Mr cisms of the Ron Paul campaign by of election laws in effect nationalized the Moulton ("Why I Will Vote for George Russell Means ("Assessing the 1988 major political parties late in the last cen­ Bush," Liberty, Nov 1988) represent the Campaign," Liberty, Jan 1989). Means tury. The parties are defined and con­ most maddening ofobstacles to faulted Paul for three things: failure to trolled by various state and federal Libertarian Party candidates. By that I run national TV commercials, failure to legislation. mean the attitudes that might be called get on all fifty state ballots and failure to The major parties are not private or­ "Sunday Libertarianism," and which raise $5 million. ganizations. They cannot exclude any­ translate into, "1'11 walk and talk like a The lack of national TV is probably a one, fascist, communist, or ignoramus Libertarian but I won't vote like one." result of too little money. But the Paul from running under their ballot labels. For anyone who thinks I'm too harsh campaign did produce and show com­ The parties are not "parties" at all; they with Mr. Moulton I suggest a compari­ mercials in some cities. are state-eontrolled lines on a ballot. son between his "I Like Bush" article As for 50 state ballots, I think the Should any third party gain "major and the one bearing his initials on page 5 record shows the Paul campaign tried party" status, which requires 5% ofthe of that same issue ("0ne nation, undeliv­ very hard and came very close. Perhaps vote in many states, that party will also erable"). Herein some guy named Robert if Russell Means had kept his promise to be taken over by the state. It will no long­ Kuttner is soundly trashed (and rightly work on ballot drives among Native er be able to control what candidates run so) for defending the U.S. Postal monop­ Americans in South Dakota, Arizona and under its banner. So if the Libertarian oly. And editor Moulton makes no bones Florida, it would have freed up enough resources for the Paul campaign to finish Party dodges its likely death by failure, it about the extent of Kuttner's perfidious­ the job they nearly finished anyway. faces death by success. ness; we are informed that Kuttner's atti­ While it is true that the Paul cam­ There is no reason why a serious can­ tudes "come close to actual evil." Right paign failed to raise the $5 million that it didate should put the millstone of a third on, Brother! had hoped to, it is certainly worth noting party around his neck when he can es­ But that's the maddening part. For it that it raised far more than any earlier LP pouse the same ideas while running on a never seems to occur to this world's campaign. It's hard to fault them for lack major party ballot line. Moultons that, ifRobert Kuttner holds of effort. Eric O'Keefe views which come close to being evil, Now, I'm glad Russell Means is a li­ Cottage Grove, Wis. then the same must be said of George Bush. After all, Bush is the guy who has bertarian, but who is he to criticize oth­ A Foul Flash-in-the-Pan proposed such things as a national day­ ers? Has he delivered on his promises? I already mentioned that he didn't work I am afraid that the inevitable post­ care plan, and who hopes to be remem­ on ballot access as he had promised. I mortems will focus once again on all the bered as the (public) Education also remember him promising a $1,000 wrong factors-faulty technique, media President! In short, it never seems to oc­ contribution to the Paul.campaign. This "bias," money, the zeitgeist, close races, cur to Moulton (or his fellow is a much less ambitious promise than crooked/incompetent aides, etc. etc.­ "Libertarian-Republicans") that George the the promises of the Paul campaign rather than on the common thread that Bush is simply Robert Kuttner magnified that he complains about. So far as I have runs through all the LP's failures: the many times over. heard, he never filled this pledge. message. It's a foul combination of dog­ John M. Simons His own nomination campaign went matic ideological flashing and wimpy, Sheffield, Vermqnt into debt and according to the Freedom gradualist prescriptions that presents as Is For Everyone (FIFE) caucus, which he many problems as solutions, and excites One Less Vote for Evil founded, he still owed $20,000 nearly a few. I apologize for my mistake in stating In its stead I propose a new pragmat- that John Hospers was a supporter of the continued on page 6 4 Liberty 1'1 never met a great thinker who wasn't a great reader." -Henry Hazlitt

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TOTAL AMOUNT - EncloM plyment In US doill" drawn on US blnk Clty/Stlt./Zlp _ ~------~ Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 Letters, continued from page 4 civil were conservatives; justices low on Misplaced Malthusiasm both were called populists. Justices who Prof. Hospers ("Liberty and Ecology," year after the convention. Perhaps his scored high on both civil and economic Liberty, Sept 1988) should be commended time might be spent more profitably liberty were called-it's academic, what for his thoughtful discussion of environ­ working on his fundraising problem rath­ they were called, because no justices mental issues. But, the fundamental ques­ er than criticizing Ron Paul's efforts. scored high on both civil and economic tion is whether political or market Emily Woodson liberty. institutions provide better incentives to Jasper, Tex. Taras Wolansky provide environmental quality. Hospers describes situations where A Vote for the Unknown? Kerhonkson, N.Y. no property rights exist, and then argues What happened to Terra Incognita? Comparing Nuts and Bolts that growing population is causing The January issue of Liberty was missing Re Sheldon Richman's commentary environmental destruction. In backward this department, one of my favorites, and on Quayle (''What the Quayle affair is nations"fOrests, plains, and wildlife are I am concerned; you are not plaI).ning to really about," Liberty, Nov 1988): How held in common. Growing population junk it for good, are, you? can onelogically or even emotionally eventually causes an unsustainable "har­ Terra is not only funny, it also darest compare Quayle's student days and the vest" of firewood, lumber, fodder, and explore the unknown region that is con­ way he apparently thought then, and his meat. The resources are destroyed. In de­ temporary public opinion and govern­ days as a senator? Ifyou want an exam­ veloped nations, waste products are ment activity. It would be a pity if Liberty ple of a classic argumentum ad hominem, dumped into the air or water. Little or no were to abandon this, one of its most·en­ there you have it. Nuts! harm was done when population density lightening (as well as lighter) features. Eugene Guazzo was low, but as population has grown, John Reilly Chaptico, Md. industrial pollution has caused environ­ Portland, Ore. mental problems. You (and., the other readers who protested Naive and Dangerous Property rights and markets create in­ its absence) will 'be happy to learn that Terra I was shocked to read John Hospers' centives to limit the harvest of resources, Incognita returns to its customary penulti­ discussion of "units of happiness" in his regardless of an individual's plan to pro­ mate position in this issue of Liberty. It was section on the quality of human life in vide for his children. Selling the resource omitted last issue to accommodate a last min­ his most recent essay ("Property, provides more present consumption than ute submission of a timely nature. -Editor Population and the Environment," an unsustainable "harvest." And, when Liberty, Jan 1989). I had thought that this waste products injure others, the pollu­ The Unnamed Ideology sort of naive utilitarian calculus had died tion becomes aggression against their John Dentinger ("Envy vs Cooper­ an ignominious death years ago, and am property rights. The individual who ation," Liberty, Nov 1988) refers to the fa­ disappointed to see it resurrected in his creates the waste products must be re­ miliar (to libertarians) two-dimensional writings. sponsible for their containment and chart of the political spectrum as the The concept of measurable pleasure disposal. "Nolan chart." However, I remember ("units of happiness") goes against the If private property rights exist and seeing just such a chart in a book on the grain of methodological individualism, are enforced, population growth does not Supreme Court, published in 1965 or and has proven its utility only to those destroy the environment. At worst, it 1966. The authors used it to plot the who wish to back up normative collecti­ causes lower per capita incomes until views of everyJustice serving from 1900 vism; that is, anti-individualistic policy children become too expensive and pop­ to the early sixties. They divided the prescriptions. If there is any justification ulation growth ceases. Improving tech­ chart into four quadrantsJustices who for the sorts of population controls that nology can postpone this outcome. were high on civi1liberties and low on Hospers somewhat hesitantly recom­ Because affluence seems to lead to small­ economic freedom were labeled liberals; mends, they should be defended using er families the Malthusian solution might justices high on economic and low on the terms that the more sophisticated never be necessary. "methodological individualists" Still, there are problems. It is difficult (Buchanan, Mises, Hayek, etc.) have de­ to "homestead" some natural resources. veloped. Libertarians who resort to so­ Proposed market solutions for conserv­ Internship cially holistic notions tread on very ing some types of wildlife orfor main­ Position Open dangerous ice, and the only break­ taining the atmospheric balance between throughs we can expe:t.from these meth­ carbon dioxide and oxygen requires sub­ Liberty Publishing offers ods are "all wet." stantial political involvement. And, indi­ full-time internships to students Hospers' discussion of population viduals can generate wastes that last for of all majors interested in political neither extended our knowledge nor generations. Even the best approach to honed our ability to deal with complicat­ philosophy or economic policy. the disposal of toxic chemicals or nuclear ed problems. He is to be congratulated Positions are available at all waste might "force" future generations to only for raising the issue and for chal­ maintain disposal facilities. times of the year. For further in­ lenging us to make the effort to sharpen formation contact Bill Bradford at Unfortunately, political institutions our skills. create few incentives to promote Liberty Magazine, PO Box 1167, David Sheldon Port Townsend, WA 98368. Gresham, Ore. continued on page 46 News You Can't Get Anywhere Else

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The January issue Liberty we reported 35 states. It was beaten by the Populist Party There was a mathematical error tentative vote totals for third parties, with in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and in William Wingo's article an, emphasis on Libertarian Party returns. Kentucky, by the New Alliance Party in "Random Drug Testing: Math­ As we go to press, nearly all the votes Virginia, Ohio, and the District of ematics and Morality" (Liberty,. have now been counted~ (the one excep­ Columbia, by the Consumers' Party in January 1989). tion is in West Virginia). What follows is Pennsylvania and Minnesota, the Peace & Mr Wingo explains: a summary of election data, correcting the Freedom Pary in New Jersey, the LaRouche "The error occurs not in the incomplete data reported in the January independent candidacy in Iowa, and by equations or calculations, but in the issue. Our thanks to Richard Winger, edi­ both the Right to Life Party and the New definition of the false positive rate tor ofBallot Access News, for his assistance Alliance Party in New York. It was not on as 1/100,000. In this calculation, I in providing us with data. the ballot in Missouri, Indiana, West erroneously redefined the fpr as Virginia and North Carolina. false positives divided by the entire Vote Totals by Party West vs East ... population, rather than as false posi­ Republican 48,130,478 For the fifth time in succession, the LP tives divided by the total number of Democrat 41,114,068 ticket did at least twice as well in the West positives as I had originallydefined Libertarian 432,345 (states lying west of Texas) as in the East: it. It is not, of course, cricket after New Alliance 217,272 Area 1970 1976 1980 1984 1988 that to use equations which were Populist 47,042 West .11% .76% 1.89% .64% .92% derived using a different definition. Consumers' 30,903 East .00% .20% .87% .23% .38% "Since the prevalence is postu­ American Independent 27,818 lated at 0.1 percent, the total number Independent (LaRouche) 25,530 Highlights and lowlights ... with the condition is 100. The false Right to Life 20,504 Of the 37 states on whose ballots the LP positive rate is 99.999 percent, not Workers' League 18,862 candidates appeared both in 1984 and 1988, 99.999999 percent. Constructingthe Socialist Worker 15,603 the 1984 ticket outpolled the 1988 ticket in 9 Peace & Freedom 10,370 states: Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, New table would have been a better way Prohibition 8,000 Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, to do it, and I wish I had done so. Workers' World 7,845 Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The 1988 ticket "I think my main point sur­ Socialist 3,878 outpolled the 1984 ticket in the remaining vives, however, and I don't feel American 3,477 28 states. much better about a 99.999 percent Grass Roots 1,949 Of the 46 states on whose ballots the required specificity than about a Independent ('{oungkite) 372 Clark ticket appeared in 1980 and the Paul 99.999999 percent required specific­ Third World Assembly 236 ticket in 1988, the Paul ticket outpolled ity. Either way, when large, low­ None of the Above 6,923 Clark in three states: Massachusetts, New prevalence populations are tested, Total 90,124,276 Hampshire, and Connecticut. innocent people are going to be There were two states in which the LP bulldozed. Thus I remain con­ America's "Third" Party ticket had its lowest vote ever: vinced that mass random drug test­ The Libertarian Party finished third in State 1988 Vote Old Record the presidential election, with 49.6% of the Alaska 2.75% 3.05% (1984) ing is inherently dangerous, and I minor party vote. The LP finished third in Hawaii 0.56% 0.66% (1984) continue to advise caution when entering into drug test agreements. The difference between one error in State·by State LP Presidential Total Vote 100,000 and one in 100,000,000 isn't Alabama 8,460 .61% Kentucky 2,118 .16% North Dakota 1,315 .44% very important if that error is you. Alaska 5,459 2.75% Louisiana 4,115 .25% Ohio 11,979 .27% "1 must apologise to Liberty and 13,351 1.14% Maine 2,700 .49% Oklahoma 6,261 .53% Arizona its readers for this error. In my de­ Arkansas 3,297 .31% Maryland 6,748 .39% Oregon 14,811 1.24% fense I can only assure you that it California 70,105 .71% Massachusetts 24,251 .92% Pennsylvania 12,051 .27% Colorado 15,483 1.13% Michigan 18,336 .50% Rhode Island 825 .20% was not intentional, and that I Connecticut 14,071 .97% Minnesota 5,109 .24% South Carolina 4,935 .50% proofread the manuscript on three Delaware 1,159 .47% Mississippi 3,329 .36% South Dakota 1,060 .34% separate occasions. Because of its Dist. of Columbia 554 .29% Missouri It 523 .02% Tennessee 2,041 .12% subtle nature, the error did not Florida 19,781 .46% Montana 5,047 1.38% Texas 30,355 .56% show up when the figures were Georgia 8,435 .47% Nebraska 2,534 .38% Utah 7,473 1.16% worked out with a calculator, and it Hawaii 1,999 ' .56% Nevada 3,520 1.00% Vermont 1,000 .41% slipped by each time. I would like 5,313 1.30% New Hampshire 4,502 1.03% Virginia 8,336 .38% Idaho to extend special thanks to an as­ Illinois 14,944 .33% ~ewJersey 8,413 .27% Washington 17,240 .92% tute reader, Mr Robert Hinkley, for Indiana It 0 .00% New Mexico 3,268 .63% West Virginia It 28 .00% Iowa 2,494 .20% New York 12,109 .19% Wisconsin 5,157 .24% pointing out this error. Kansas 12,533 1.26% North Carolina It 1,263 .05% Wyoming 2,026 1.15% "My high school algebra grade should be retroactively adjusted ,. Write-in votes. The Libertarian candidates were not on ballot in Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina or West Virginia. Write-in votes are not tabulated in Indiana. West Virginia total is incomplete. downward." 8 Liberty by groups of 50 or 100 in vaulted rooms made to accommodate Toward a free market in smoke - I recently went through a strange sequence of illnesses and hospitaliza­ 1000. tions, resulting in, among other things, my physician strongly The cultural action in the Cultural Center is up the street at recommending I switch from chewing tobacco to smoking a the art museum, where Santa Claus is holding court. Enthroned pipe. It's been ten years since I smoked a pipe, and things have in a tinselly stage-set depicting his "village" at the "north pole," changed. Santa is surrounded at all times by a mob. of minicam-wielding I remember pipes being available everywhere-drug stores, parents-pink-eheeked suburbanites who, driven by a hunger supermarkets, department stores. And all different kinds. Pipe for representational realism, have lugged. all this expensive tobacco is still generally ayailable, but not nearly as much as it equipment downtown so that they may preserve forever each used to be. I fired off a query to myoId pipe dealer in Chicago, fleeting nuance of their youngsters' encounters with the god of Iwan Ries, only to find out that its catalog is much tinier than it the season. The encounters are fleeting, not easily captured. used to be. When one serious little boy produces a brief written list of de­ Then I began to look around. In all of West Lafayette, a col­ sired presents and begins to read from it, Santa emits a jolly lege town to the maximum extent, I can think of only one guy "ho, ho, ho," throws the list to the floor, and pushes the child besides myself that smokes a pipe-not just one guy that I toward an attendant elf who skillfully ushers him out. know, but only one guy that I've even seen. But there is another reason why things are jumping at the I don't need to see any statistics to realize that pipe smoking Institute of Arts. Helga is here. Helga, in case you didn't know, is in serious decline, but what did it? It can't be the fact that to­ is a woman whose portrait Andrew Wyeth sketched and bacco ads are now illegal on TV, because those were all for cigar­ painted hundreds of times during the 1970s and 1980s. Clever ettes, weren't they? It can't be the price, because pipe tobacco is press agentry and tabloid speculations about Wyeth's relation­ still at the same ratio it used to be with cigarettes, if not at an ship to a frequently nude model who was not his wife 0) have even greater advantage. turned this exhibit of Helga's likenesses into an object of pil­ My tentative conclusion is: because pipe tobacco and pipe grimage for thousands of people who would not walk so far as smoking remain legal, and the government propaganda is the gallery upstairs to see a Bellini or a Van Eyck. The Wyeth ex­ aimed entirely against cigarettes and illegal drugs, the idea of hibit is packed shoulder to shoulder~ the Renaissance rooms are smoking a pipe with regular tobacco has lost its appeal. There's empty. no glamour in doing something that is legal and has the tacit ap­ But Wyeth's audience is curiously silent. What is one to say, proval'ofthe government. after all, about 120 portraits of a woman whose apparent inten­ So all you pipe smokers out there who are getting annoyed tion is to look as expressionless as possible, 120 portraits by an with the lack of availability of pipes and appropriate parapher­ artist who is apparently incapable of varying either his tech­ nalia can do something. Write your Congressman requesting nique or the dismal brown that is the prevailing color of his that pipe smoking and possession of pipes and pipe tobacco be works? Of course, there are both indoor pictures and outdoor made at least a misdemeanor. And, more importantly, that the pictures, so one can choose between the Presbyterian nudity of government immediately spend a whole lot of money on TV ad­ Helga arranged on a bed and the lugubrious Hawthornism of vertising pointing out that pipes are unhealthy, immoral, and Helga, wrapped in a dark cape coat, standing sullenly beside anti-social. Also request that glorification of pipe-smokers cease some sullen trees. The choice is not very stimulating. The open­ straightaway, and insist that 'Popeye cartoons be banned from est, perhaps the healthiest, reaction to Helga comes from a pair children's programming. Then, we won't even have to go to K­ of young people who walk through the galleries laughing softly Mart to get our 'corn cobs and Flying Dutchman. We'll have to each other. blue-eheeked thugs in business suits selling them to us on the After 70 or 80 years of being told that abstraction of almost streets and in school playgrounds. -RFM any kind is better than realism of almost any kind, the nice peo­ ple who seek "culture" would like to have more contact with Helga Claus is coming to town - Detroit, substantial and enduring forms of life than they can get from Dec. 18, 1988. It's Christmas season in the heart of Detroit's soulless canvasses in which painters "play" with "formal ele­ "Cultural Center." An arctic wind is sweeping down Woodward ments" but take care not to represent anything. Hence the grim­ Avenue. Here and there, you' can see an old man or woman ly serious interest in Wyeth's studies of a real-life human being, struggling toward the entrance of one of the churches lining the studies in which, according to the Art Institute's brochure, "the avenueis eastern side. They are magnificent things, these church­ artist, and thus the viewer, invades [sic] an intimate, private es. Gothic-Victorian, romanesque-Victorian, Byzantine­ world." Hence our era's nostalgic vulnerability to as many frag­ Victorian, they were built when artistic fantasy was large and ments of traditional culture as can be dug up, jazzed up, and put confident enough to impose itself in mountains of white and on display. rose stone. This year, the fourth Sunday in Advent is celebrated In the absence of genuine drama, conflict, aspiration, Liberty 9 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 imagination, and belief, this sort of thing won't satisfy its consu­ Still, that's a lot of dollars per person, and a strong mers any longer than their videotapes of the kids' 15 seconds indication that most libertarians are willing to put their money with Santa Claus. To think that it might is the saddest of where their mouths are when it comes to their intellectual and fantasies. -SC political beliefs. Whether this generosity is a goodr thing or not, it certainly belies the notion (inspired by Ayn Rand's anti­ McCarthyism for moderns - It was a pleasure to altruism) that libertarians don't care much about the future of read Karen Shabetai's review of the Mary McCarthy biography their fellow man. -MH in the January Liberty. I would like to add an emphasis on Mary McCarthy's elegant, lucid, spare, and highly witty style, and also my heartfult belief that the style deeply reflects the mind of the author: lithe style is the man." As Ms Shabetai observes, Whether this generosity is agood thing or not, Mary McCarthy's famous conflict with Lillian Hellman was not simply ideological; there is an even greater contrast in their qual­ it certainly belies the notion (inspired by Ayn ities of mind. And I think the issue goes beyond the simple mat­ Rand's anti-altruism) that libertarians don't care ter of "honesty vs. dishonesty." What Mary McCarthy has reacted against all her life is the pretentious, humorless, flatu­ much about the future of their fellow man. lent, pomposo style of authors like Hellman and Arthur Miller. Her rejection of those twin twentieth century despotic intellectu­ al fashions, Freudianism and Marxism, reflect the same rational, crystal-clear, satiric, anti-pretentious cast of mind, a mind that The movement that satirizes itself - In the repudiates bad writing and murky thinking. -MNR January Letters, Frank Bubb chides me, in "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult" for raking over old bones, and claims, only on Ante up - Whatever else one can say about people in the the strength of listening to some Peikoff tapes, that the Bad Old contemporary American libertarian movement, it is certainly ap­ Days of the RandCult are dead and gone. Balderdash! The parent that they are extraordinarily generous, particularly when RandCult, even though decimated from the glory days of the it comes to funding libertarian political activity and the 60s, still lives. Read Peter Schwartz, or better yet, talk to an or­ Libertarian Party. thodox Randian in the flesh, and in five minutes, the veneer of Although precise figures aren't yet available, preliminary in­ good fellowship disappears, and the old "how-dare-you-talk-to­ formation indicates that the LP presidential campaign, the ballot me-that-way-about-the-greatest-person-of-all-time" RandCultist access effort, the national party office and assorted local LP can­ emerges in full flower. Sad to say, similar personality traits pop didates raised at least $2.5 million in 1988. This isn't big money up even in the more numerous group of disillusioned ex­ by the standards of major political players, but it's not bad at all Randians. Even those who recognize and repudiate unfortunate when you consider that ·there are perhaps 25,000 contributors in aspects of the RandCult will still proclaim, at the drop of a hat, all, by the most generous estimates. Unlike the 1980 LP political that"Ayn Rand is the greatest (novelist, philosopher, woman, season, which benefited from having a billionaire (exempt from person) ofall time." contribution limits) on the ticket, all the 1988 funds came from Mr. Bubb assumes that I exaggerated the grotesque features relatively small contributors. of the RandCult. I don't blame him. No one who was not a This amounts to an extraordinary $100 per person on aver­ RandCultist, especially in New York City, the Randian age. Given the relative youth of the contemporary libertarian Heartland, can grasp the full depths of that movement. Besides, movement, it's likely that most are early middle-aged or as any veteran libertarian ought to realize, in our beloved move­ younger. ment, you don't have to exaggerate for dramatic or comic effect: In addition to this largess, the funding for non-politicalliber­ a mere recital of the facts will do. -MNR tarian endeavors such as think tanks, magazines and outreach groups (such as Advocates for Self Government and LROC) Who votes for third party candidates?- probably totals $5 million or more, though some of that comes According to an exit poll published by the New York Times, in­ from corporate sponsors or free-market oriented conservatives. dividuals in the following categories are most likely to vote for third party candidates than others: men blacks individuals with post-graduate education Westerners students teachers unmarried men I am not certain whether there is a lesson in this for Libertarian Party partisans. But it certainly would not hurt to

1 ~ B.I,o nominate a candidate who is likely to appeal to these groups. , Now it may be difficult to find a black, unmarried man, who lives in the West, has a PhD, and teaches, and it would be fool­ ish to require a candidate to meet these qualifications. Clearly, "I'm not implying that you're a bigot - I'm just saying the abilities to articulate the libertarian vision, to command the that your prejudices seem less rational than mine." attention of the media and the voting public are more important. 10 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 But it certainly wouldn't hurt the vote totals any if the LP had a Better planning and preparation today means a better and more nominee who met at least some of these qualifications. efficient and effective campaign in 1992. Curiously, at least one individual whose name has been Shortly after the LP's first nationwide campaign in 1976, LP mentioned as a possible candidate meets all these qualifications. national chairman Ed Crane made a personal commitment to Walter Williams is an articulate advocate of libertarian ideas planning and executing an effective and efficient presidential and a fine speaker. He also is male, black, has a post-graduate campaign in 1980. He critically evaluated the 1976 campaign education, and is a professor at George Mason University. and learned from its mistakes. He researched and developed a Williams has also indicated an interest in being the campaign plan, taking into account the resources-ideological, Libertarian Party standard bearer. At the Alabama LP conven­ personal and financial-of the libertarian movement. He brain­ tion in 1987, according to Alabama Liberty, he stole the show with stormed about possible candidates and sounded out those he an impressive speech on individual rights. He denied interest in thought were attractive. He shared his thoughts with other acti­ running for Vice President in 1988, but refused to rule out run­ vists. The result of his effort was the 1980 LP Presidential cam­ ning for either President or Vice President on the LP ticket in paign, which garnered 920,000 votes. 1992. He did rule out his running as a Democrat or Republican. This is not to say that the 1980 campaign was perfectly run. He endorsed the candidacy of Ron Paul, although he admit­ Anyone who attended the ridiculously botched /I Alternative ted that he had no hope of its election: /I As far as winning the '80/1 video party can attest to that. And it enjoyed the advantage White House, that's out of the question, but the issue is who can of a multimillionaire vice presidential candidate with very deep further libertarians the most, and I think Ron Paul is one of the pockets. And the world was different in 1976 and 1980. But I tops./I have no doubt that the commitment and effort of Ed Crane con­ With both Ron Paul and Russell Means denying interest in tributed mightily to the success of that campaign. the 1992 nomination, Williams would certainly have a good Where is Ed Crane now that we really need him? -CAA chance of gaining the nomination if he seeks it. And if nominat­ ed, he would certainly be a formidable candidate. -CAA Chester Alan Arthur and the 1988 cam- paign - Congratulations to Chester Alan Arthur for a Corndogs and quiche - There are two basic kinds thoughtful and comprehensive article on the Libertarian Party of libertarian. The first kind divides all libertarians into two and the 1988 campaign. The time after a Presidential campaign kinds, and the other doesn't. is the time for Libertarians to assess and reevaluate their strate­ But seriously, I do perceive at least two large groups. The gy and tactics, and decide what to do from now on. Arthur's ar­ first is at home with quiche-eating liberals and knows just how ticle deserves to be read by every libertarian, in or out of the to scoop them in and get them to thinking that maybe there's Party. something to freedom after all. This group, however, is totally at sea when encountering Birchers, Wallaceites, and rednecks. Then the other group of libertarians is the mirror image of the first. I belong to this group. When I run into somebody who We've already won several teeny local elec­ likes gun control, I frankly am struck speechless. I can't think of a damn thing to say. And even if I've learned a good approach, tions, and while this is great, these victories have I'm inclined to say the hell with it, I don't want to waste my hardly invigorated the Party as a whole. No mat­ time on folks like that. I presume that my colleagues who are more comfy with the white wine crowd have exactly the same ter how much we all love Podunk, let's face it, a feelings of exasperation when they run into a Bible Thumper or victory there doesn't mean a helluva lot outside somesuch. of Podunk's marketing area. What to conclude from all this? Just that patience and tolerance are always in order. There are very few of us who were lucky enough to start out as libertarians. Most of us were One fascinating contrast is Arthur's assessment of the Larry lefties or righties, and a lot of our gut-reactions carryover from Dodge campaign with Dodge's own contribution to the post­ the old days. Just remember that they are gut reactions, and not election discussion. Whereas Dodge seems ready to liquidate the rational responses. If one of you ex-McGovernites encounters LP as a political party, Arthur makes the crucially important Lester Maddox or Gordon Liddy in a receptive mood, and feels point that the Dodge campaign succeeded in getting its issues co­ unable to control the situation, just send for me or someone opted by the major parties in Montana! It should be emphasized like me. Contrariwise, if1happen onto Ed Asner orJesse Jackson, that the LP does not have to actually win elections before it be­ I'll know damn well I'd better send for one of you. . -RFM comes politically significant: with a small fraction of the vote, e.g. Larry's 5 percent, the LP can have an important effect in Where is Ed Crane now that we really pushing the major parties in our direction. Like the Socialist need him? - If there is one lesson that Libertarian Party Party in the New Deal era, we would love to have the major par­ partisans should learn from the 1988 campaign, it is the need for ties adopting our programs! And we .libertarians don't have to competent management. This means making long term plans to worry about running out of issues to push: we can always up the achieve its goals, based on reasonable expectations, and using ante! the best information available. Several old chestnuts are being trotted out in the wake of the But more importantly, now is the time to begin thinking disappointing election results. (As Arthur points out, about the 1992 campaign. Now is the time to set priorities. Now Libertarians are always being disappointed!) For example, the is the time to begin raising funds. Now is the time to think about possible nominees. Now is the time to build party structures. continued on page 22 Liberty 11 BUT IF" THEY •••"THER.E ARE l='OLKS MY POLITICAL WHY NOT? OUT '"THERE Live and PHILOSOPHY IS DONJ;" HURT ~ERS ••• DECIDING "LIVE: AND LET LIVE". FOR THEMSELVES HOw \et live? SOME~ '"mAT'S IRRELEVANT! 1"0 l.NE /HEIR. LIVES. YOUCAN'T~ BONG BECALJ5E OF UVERljT'. 1 PEOPL~ LIKE YOU ••• NO WONDER! :jPLE LlVE~) ~) FEEL SO GUI U"Y. ffi efj~ t:ef' "'- 00 R' g Bush. pressllred to raise taxes

HE'S GOING TO I READ GEORGE I ALSO READ BUSH'S LI PS. "NO NEW TAXES!II RAISE11iE HIS MIND. OLD TAXES. ALRIGHT! W~ATOID WHAT DID GEORGE. THEYSAV? HE'S STILL BUSl-lSMIND SAY? ONE OF US.

IN 19B8} THE ISRAELIS SOUNDS LIKE 1l-fE ,SRAalS KILLED 300 PALESTINIAN ARE TERRORIZING 'TEENAGER~ SHOT' HUNDREDS THE PALESTINIANS. MORE au l.DOZED DOZENS . OF pALESTINIAN HOMES Terrorists ANO BOM8ED PALESnN/ANS THE ISRAElIS ARE J OUTSIDE ISRAEL. c§:E ANTI-iERROR\SlS. VS. J ~ ~ ~ Anti-lerrorJsts A "'-00 "-ea 1 it .G N~ \1 W BURONS ! IT~ IT' so COMPUCATED! How CAN YOU TaL ANTJ-TERRORIS1S n1E TERRORISTS FROM HAVE UNIFORMS. A speculation on the ~E ANTI-TERRORISTS? source of headlines by Bob Ortin ~) m ~ ~€B , . ~, I tl \l ~ Feds seek Pan Am bomber Q' Pl ANY PRIME SUSPECT IN THEN WHY ISN/T 'THE PAN AM BOMBING? I HOPETH.ctr STOPS iliEIR. RETALIATION THIS DEADLYGAME.. STOPPING us? ll ONE GROOP \.()WED RETAL,ATION ~EN v.e. WE CAN'T WIN BLASTED THAr IF"1"HE GAME { COUNT ON IT. ENDS IN A '11E. GIRANIAN A1RUNER. ~ \~ ~ ~ ""-e ~ "'-ee E~ R Q~\7 N' Yl 12 Liberty Vivisection

Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy by Murray N. Rothbard

Ronald Reagan left America with a trillion dollar national debt, a renewed hostility toward personal free~om and an increased demand for jellybeans ...

Eight years, eight dreary, miserable, mind-numbing years, the years of the Age of Reagan, are at long last .coming to an end. These years have surely left an ominous legacy for the future: we shall undoubteqly suffer from the after-shocks of Reaganism for years to come. But at least Himself will not be there, and without , " ,"",,,,,," 1 the man Reagan, without what has been called his "charisma," Reaganism can­ Sometimes, Reagan's retentive who cares if the actual story is wrong? not nearly be the same. Reagan's heirs memory-important for an actor-gave Let it stand, like a Hollywood story, as and assigns are a pale shadow of the his handlers trouble. Evidently lacking a surrogate for the welfare cheats Master, as we can see from the perfor­ the capacity for reasoned thought, Rea­ whom everyone knows do exist. mance of George Bush. He might try to gan's mind is filled with anecdotes, The degree to which Reagan is out imitate the notes of Reagan, but the most of them dead wrong, that he has of touch with reality was best demon­ music just ain't there. Only this pro­ soaked up over the years in the course strated in his concentration camp story. vides a glimmer of· hope for America: of reading Reader's Digest or at idle con- This was not simply a slip of the that Reaganism might not survive .versation. Once an anecdote enters Rea­ tongue, a Bushian confusion of Decem­ much beyond Reagan. gan's noodle, it is set in concrete and ber with September. When the Premier impossible to correct or dislodge. (Con­ of Israel visited Reagan at the White Reagan the Man sider, for example, the famous story House, the President went on and on Many recent memoirs have filled about the "Chicago welfare queen": all for three quarters of an hour explaining out the details of what some of us, have wrong, but Reagan carried on why he was pro-Jewish: it was because, long suspected: that Reagan is basically regardhzss.) being in the Signal Corps in World War a cretin who, as a long-time actor, is In the early years of Reagan rule, the II, he visited Buchenwald shortly after skilled in reading his assigned lines and press busily checked out Reagan's be­ the Nazi defeat and helped to take films performing his assigned tasks. Donald loved anecdotes, and found that almost of that camp. Reagan repeated this Regan and others have commented on everyone of them was full of holes. But story the following day to an Israeli am­ Ronald Reagan's strange passivity, his Reagan never veered from his course. bassador. But the truth was lBO-degrees never asking questions or offering any Why? God knows there are plenty of different; Reagan was not in Europe; he ideas of his own, his willingness to wait correct stories about welfare cheats that never saw a concentration camp; he until others place matters before him. he could have clasped to his bosom; spent the entire war in the safety of Hol­ Regan has also remarked that Reagan is why stick to false ones? Evidently, the lywood, making films for the armed happiest when following· the set sched­ r~ason is that Reagan cares little about forces. ule that others have placed before him. reality; he lives in his own Hollywood Well, what are we to make of this in­ The actor, having achieved at last the fantasy world, a world of myth, a world cident? This little saga stayed in the stardom that had eluded him in Holly­ in which it is always Morning in Ameri­ back pages of the press. By that point wood, reads the lines and performs the ca, a world where The Flag is always the media had realized that Virtually actions that others-his script-writers, flying, but where Welfare Cheats mar nothing-no fact, no dark deed-could his directors-have told him to follow. the contentment of the Land of Oz. So ever stick to the Teflon President. (lran- Liberty 13 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 Contra shook things up a bit, but in a viled in his time; he has only been made can State and not just about the country few months even that was forgotten.) an icon in retrospect by the conservative is lost even on many libertarians. There are only two ways to interpret movement. Jack Kennedy, too, is only a But, in that case, why didn't Hubert the concentration camp story. Perhaps hero now that he has been safely in­ Humphrey's egregious "politics of joy" Reagan engaged in a bald-faced lie. But terred; before his assassination he was evoke the same all-inclusive love? I why? What would he have to gain? Es­ cordially detested by all conservatives. don't know the answer, but I'm con­ pecially after the lie was found out, as it Nobody ever loved Nixon. The closest to vinced it's not simply because Hubert soon would be. The only other way to ex­ universal lovability was Ike, and even was captive to the dreaded "L-word" plain this incident, and a far more plau­ he did not inspire the intense devotion whereas Ronnie is a conservative. It's a sible one, is that Ronnie lacks the accorded to Ronnie Reagan; with Ike it lot deeper than that. One of the remark­ capacity to distinguish fantasy from re­ was more of a tranquilized sense of ably Teflon qualities of Reagan is that, ality. He would, at even after many years least in retrospect, have as President, he is still liked to be filming Bu­ Reagan cares little about reality; he lives in his able to act as if he chenwald at the end of were totally separate the war. The wish was own Hollywood fantasy world, a world of myth, a from the actions of the father to the fact: in his world in which it is always Morning in America, government. He can mind, he was filming at still denounce the gov­ Buchenwald. Certainly, a world where The Flag is always flying,i but ernment in the same it made a better story where Welfare Cheats mar the contentment of the ringing terms he used than the facts. But what Land of Oz. when he was out of are we to call a man power. And he gets who cannot distinguish away with it, probably fantasy from reality? peace and contentment. because inside his head, he is still Ron­ It is surely frightening to think that But with Reagan, it has been pure nie Reagan, the mouther of anti­ the most powerful position in the world love: every nod of the head; every wist­ government anecdotes as lecturer for has been held for eight years by a man ful "We-e-ll," every dumb and flawed General Electric. who cannot tell fact from fancy. Even anecdote, every snappy salute, sends In a deep sense, Reagan has not been more frightening is the defection of the virtually every American into ecstasy. a functioning part of the government for media, who early lost heart and played From all corners of the land came the eight years. Off in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, the role of a submissive receptacle for cry, "I don't like his policies very much, he is the obedient actor who recites his photo-opportunities and press-release but I lo-o-ve the man." Only a few mal­ lines and plays his appointed part. Some handouts. One reason for this defection contents, popping up here and there, in commentators have been critical of Rea­ was the discovery of Reagan's Teflon a few obscure corners of the land, gan for napping in the afternoons, for nature. Another likely reason was that emerged as dedicated and bitter oppo­ falling asleep at crucial meetings, for journalists who were too feisty and inde­ nents. As one of this tiny minority I can taking long vacations at his beloved pendent would be deprived of their pre­ testify that it was a lonely eight years, ranch. Well, why not? What else does he cious access to the Presidential plane or even within the ranks of the libertarian have to do? Reagan doesn't actually to inside scoops or leaks from the White movement. Sometimes I felt like a lone have to do anything; like Peter Sellers in House. And a third reason was probably and unheeded prophet, bringing the his last film, all he has to do is be there, the desire not to dwell on the vital and plain truth to those who refused to un­ the beloved icon, giving his vital sanc­ hair-raising fact that the President of the derstand. Very often I would be at free­ tion to the governmental process. United States, the "leader of the free market gatherings, from living rooms to Reagan's handlers perceived early world" and all that jazz, is nothing more conferences, and I would go on and on on that one threat to Reagan's Teflon than a demented half-wit. about the deficiencies of Reagan's poli­ rule would be allowing him to mix it up But why the Teflon? Because of the cies and person, and would be met with with members of the press. Away from incredible love affair that Ronald Rea­ responses like: "Well, of course, he's not his teleprompter, Ronnie was a real gan has enjoyed with the American peo­ a Ph.D." problem. So very soon, any sort of real ple; In all my years of fascination with Me: "No, no, that's not the point. press conference, including uninhibited American politics (my early childhood The man is a blithering idiot. He makes questions and answers, was done away memories are couched in terms of who Warren Harding tower like Aristotle." with. The only press "conferences" be­ was President or who was Mayor of Responder: "Ronald Reagan has came shouted questions as Reagan New York City or who won what elec­ made us feel good about America." walked quickly to and from the White tion), I have never seen anything re­ Perhaps that's part of the explana­ House helicopter. One of his handlers motely like it. Anyone else universally tion for the torrent of unconditional love has written that, despite all efforts, they beloved? Franklin D. Roosevelt was that the American public has poured couldn't stop Reagan from exercising worshipped, to be sure, by most of the onto Ronald Reagan. Lost in Hollywood one peculiar personality trait: his com­ American electorate, but there was al­ loony-land, Ronnie's sincere optimism pulsion to answer every question that he ways a large and magnificent minority struck a responsive chord in the Ameri­ hears. But fortunately, not much was who detested every inch of his guts. can masses. The ominous fact that he risked, since the noise of the helicopter Truman? He was almost universally re- "made us" feel good about the Ameri- engines would drown out most of the

14 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 repartee. order. At the very least, federal govern­ American masses-and a large chunk of The worst moment for the Reagan ment spending should have been frozen, libertarians and self-proclaimed free­ handlers came, of course, during the in absolute terms, so that the rest of the market economists as well! "Let's close first debate with Mondale in 1984. For economy would be allowed to grow in another loophole, Mr. President." "We­ one glorious moment, during the give contrast. Instead, Ronald Reagan cut e-ell, OK, then, so long as we're not rais­ and take of the debate, the real Reagan nothing, even in the heady first year, ing taxes." (Definition of '100phole": emerged: confused, befuddled, out of it. 1981. Any and all money the other guy has lt was a shaky moment, but all the han­ At first, the only "cut" was in Cart­ earned, and that hasn't been taxed away dlers needed to do was to reassure the er's last-minute loony-tunes estimates yet. Your money, of course, has been shocked masses that their beloved Presi­ for the future. But in a few short years, fairly earned, and shouldn't be taxed dent was still sentient, was still there to Reagan's spending surpassed even Cart­ further.) be a totem to his flock. The handlers er's irresponsible estimates. Instead, Income tax rates in the upper brack­ blamed Reagan's showing on "over­ Reagan not only increased government ets have come down. But the odious bi­ coaching," they made sure that he slept spending by an enormous amount-so partisan "loophole closing" of the Tax a lot just before the second debate, and enormous that it would take a 40 per­ Reform Act of 1986-an act engineered they fed him a snappy mock self­ cent cut to bring us back to Carter's wild by our Jacobin egalitarian "free-market" deprecating one-liner about his age. The spending totals of 1980-he even sub­ economists in the name of "fairness"­ old boy could still remember his jokes: stantially increased the percentage of raised instead of lowered the income tax he got off his lovable crack, and the government spending to GNP. That's a paid by most upper-income people. American masses, with a sigh of relief, "revolution"? Again: what one hand of government clasped him to their bosoms once again. The much heralded 1981 tax cut was giveth, the other taketh away, and then more than offset by two tax increases some. Thus, President-elect Bush has The Reagan Years: Libertarian that year. One was ''bracket creep," by just abandoned his worthy plan to cut Rhetoric, Statist Polic ies which inflation wafted people into high­ the capital gains tax in half, because it How did Reagan manage to pursue er tax brackets, so that with the same would violate the beloved tax fairness egregiously statist policies in the name real income (in terms of purchasing instituted by the bipartisan Reaganite of liberty and of "getting government power) people found themselves paying 1986 "reform." off our backs?" How was he able to fol­ a higher proportion of their income in The bottom line is that tax revenues low this course of deception and taxes, even though the official tax rate have gone up an enormous amount mendacity? schedule went down. The other was the under the eight years of Reagan; the Don't try to get Ronnie off the hook usual whopping increase in Social Se­ only positive thing we can say for them by blaming Congress. Like the general curity taxes which, however, don't is that revenues as percentage of the public-and all too many libertarians­ count, in the perverse semantics of our gross national product are up only Congress was merely a passive recepta­ time, as "taxes"; they are only "insu­ slightly since 1980. The result: the mon­ cle for Ronnie's wishes. Congress rance premiums." In the ensuing years strous deficit, now apparently perma­ passed the Reagan budgets-with a few the Reagan Administration has constant­ nently fixed somewhere around $200 marginal adjustments here and there­ ly raised taxes-to punish us for the billion, and the accompanying tripling and gave him virtually all the legisla­ fake tax cut of 1981-beginning in 1982 of the total federal debt in the· eight tion, and ratified all the personnel, he with the largest single tax increase in blessed years of the Reagan Era. Is that wanted. For one Bork there are thou­ American history, costing taxpayers what the highly-touted "Reagan Revolu­ sands who made it. The last eight years $100 billion. tion" amounts to, then? A tripling of the have been a Reagan Administration, for Creative semantics is the way in national debt? the Gipper to make or break. which Ronnie was able to keep his We should also say a word about There was no "Reagan Revolution." pledge never to Any "revolution" in the direction of lib­ raise taxes while erty (in Ronnie's words "to get govern­ raising them all ment off our backs") would reduce the the time. Rea­ total level of government spending. And gan's handlers, as that means reduce in absolute terms, not we have seen, an­ as proportion of the gross national prod­ noyed by the uct, or corrected for inflation, or any­ stubborn old thing else. There is no divine coot's sticking to commandment that the federal govern­ "no new taxes," ment must always be at least as great a finessed the old proportion of the national product as it boy by simply was in 1980. If the government was a calling the phe­ monstrous, swollen Leviathan in 1980, nomenon by a as libertarians were surely convinced, as different name. If the inchoate American masses were ap­ the Gipper was Balo o parently convinced, and as Reagan and addled enough to his cadre claimed to believe, then fall for this trick, "You're a shoo-in for re-election, sir-the other party nominated a tortoise'" cutting government spending was in so too did the Liberty 15 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 another of Ronnie's great "libertarian" Reagan years. The hated OSHA, the going to merge with ABC.") All this is accomplishments. In the late 1970s, it be­ scourge of small business and at the being done by the cartelizing and fascis­ came obvious even to the man in the street time the second most-hated agency of tic Securities and Exchange Commis­ that the Social Security System was the federal government (surely you sion, the Department of Justice and its bankrupt, kaput. For the first time in fifty need not ask which is the first most­ much-hailed Savanarola in New York, years there was an excellent chance to hated), was not only not abolished; it Rudolf Giuliani. All this is the work of get rid of the biggest single racket in too was strengthened and reinforced. the beloved Gipper, the "free-market," American politics, a racket that acts as a Environmentalist restrictions were "libertarian" Reagan Administration. gigantic Ponzi scheme to fleece the greatly accelerated, especially after the And where are the "conservative­ American taxpayer. Instead, Reagan heady early years when selling off some libertarians"? Where are the "free­ brought in the famed "Randian libertari­ public lands was briefly mentioned, and market economists" to point this out an" Alan Greenspan, who served as the proponents of actually using and de­ and condemn it? head of a bipartisan commission, per­ veloping locked-up government re­ Foreign aid, a vast racket by which forming the miracle of "saving Social Se­ sources (James Watt, Anne Burford, Rita American taxpayers are mulcted in curity," and the masses have rested Lavelle) were disgraced and sent pack­ order to subsidize American export content with the system ever since. How ing as a warning to any future "anti­ firms and foreign governments (mostly did he "save" it? By raising taxes (oops environmentalists." dictatorships), has been vastly expanded "premiums"), of course; by that route, The Reagan Administration, suppos­ under Reagan. The Administration also the government can "save"any pro­ edly the champion of free trade, has encouraged the nation's banks to inflate gram. (Bipartisan: both parties acting in been the most protectionist in American and pour money down Third World rat­ concert to put both of their hands in history, raising tariffs, imposing import holes; then bailed out the banks and tin­ your pocket.) quotas, and-as another neat bit of crea­ pot socialist dictatorships at the expense The way Reagan-Greenspan saved tive semantics-twisting the arms of the of U.S. taxpayers (via tax increases) and Social Security is a superb paradigm of Japanese to impose "voluntary" export consumers (via inflation). Since the dis­ Reagan's historical function in all areas quotas on automobiles and microchips. crediting of Friedmanite monetarism by of his realm: he acted to bail out statism It has made the farm program the most the end of the first Reagan term, the and to co-opt and defuse any libertarian abysmal of this century: boosting price original monetarist policy of allOWing or quasi-libertarian opposition. The supports and production quotas, and the dollar to fluctuate freely has been su­ method worked brilliantly, for Social Se­ paying many more billions of taxpayer perseded by Keynesian Secretary of curity and other programs. money to farmers so that they can pro­ Treasury James Baker, who has concert­ How about deregulation? Didn't duce less and raise prices to consumers. ed with foreign central banks to try to Ronnie at least deregulate the regula­ And we should never forget a disas­ freeze the dollar within various zones. tion-ridden economy inherited from the trous and despotic program that has re- The interference has been, as usual, fu­ evil Carter? Just the op- tile and counterpro­ posite. The outstanding ductive, but that will measures of deregula­ After many years as President, Reagan is still able not stop the soon-to-be tion were all passed by to act as if he were totally separate from the actions of even more powerful the Carter Administra­ Baker from trying to tion, and, as is typical the government. He can still denounce the government fulfill, or at least move of that luckless Presi­ in the same ringing terms he used when he was out of strongly toward, the dent, the deregulation power. And he gets away with it. old Keynesian dream was phased in to take of one world fiat paper effect during the early ------.. currency (or at least Reagan years, so that ceived unanimous support from the fixed exc.l-!ange rates of the Gipper could claim the credit. Such media and from the envious American the various national currencies) issued was the story with oil and gas deregula­ public: the massive witchhunt and reign by one world Central Bank-in short, ec­ tion (which the Gipper did advance from of terror against the victimless non­ onomic world government. September to January of 1981); airline crime of "insider trading." In a country But didn't Ronnie "bring down infla­ deregulation and the actual abolition of where real criminals-muggers, rapists, tion"? Sure, but he did it, not by some the Civil Aeronautics Board, and dere­ and "inside" thieves-are allowed to run miracle, but the old-fashioned way: by gulation of trucking. That was it. rampant, massive resources and publici­ the steepest recession (read: depression) The Gipper deregulated nothing, ty are directed toward outlawing the since the 1930s. And now, as a result of abolished nothing. Instead of keeping use of one's superior knowledge and in­ his inflationary monetary policies, infla­ his pledge to abolish the Departments of sight in order to make profits on the tion is back with a roar-which the Tef­ Energy and Education, he strengthened market. lon President will leave as one of his them, and even wound up his years in In the course of this reign of terror, it great legacies to the Bush Admin­ office adding a new Cabinet post, the is not surprising that freedom of speech istration. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Overall, was the first thing to go by the boards. And then there is another charming the quantity and degree of government Government spies and informers busily legacy: the. reckless inflationary course, regulation of the economy was greatly report conversations over martinis encouraged by the Reagan Administra­ increased and intensified during the ("Hey Joe, I heard that XYZ Corp. is tion, of the nation's savings-and-Ioan

16 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 banks. Virtually the entire industry is urine testing (supervised, of course, Reagan Administration looked the other now bankrupt, and FSLIC-the federal since otherwise the testee might be able way on drug-running by its own CIA. agency supposedly "insuring" S&L de­ to purchase and substitute black-market On foreign policy, the best we can positors-is bankrupt. Instead of allow­ drug-free urine). In this grotesque pro­ say about Ronnie is that he did not ing the banks and their deluded posal, government is not only not off our launch World War III. Apart from that, depositors to pay the price of their prof­ backs, it is now also insisting on joining his foreign policy was a series of mur­ ligacy, everyone of both parties, includ­ us in the bathroom. dering blunders: ing our "free-market" Reaganauts, is And in the bedroom, too, if Ronnie • His idiotic know-nothing intervention prepared to use taxpayer money or the has his way. Although abortion is not into the cauldron of Lebanon, result­ printing press to bail out the entire in­ yet illegal, it is not for lack of effort by ing in the murder of several hundred dustry-to the tune of an estimated 50 the Reagan Administration. The relent- U.s. Marines. to 100 billion dollars. • His failed attempt­ (These estimates, by lauded by Reaga­ the way, come from At first, the only H spending cut" was in Carter's nites ever since--to government sources, murder Colonel which notoriously un- last-minute loony-tunes estimates for the future. But Khadafy by an air derestimate future in a few short years, Reagan's spending surpassed strike-and suc­ costs of their even Carter's irresponsible estimates. ceeding instead in programs.) slaying his baby I have been cleav­ daughter, after ing to the strictly eco- which our media sneered at Khadafy nomic realm because even the less Reaganite drive to conservatize the for looking haggard, and commented staunchest pro-Reagan libertarian will judiciary will likely recriminalize abor­ that the baby was "only adopted." not dare to claim that Ronnie has been a tion soon, making criminals out of mil­ • His stumblebum intervention into the blessing for civil liberties. On the con­ lions of American women each year. Persian Gulf, safeguarding oil tankers trary. In addition to his reign of terror George Bush, for less than twenty-four of countries allied to Iraq in the Iraq­ on Wall Street (who cares about the civil glorious hours, was moved to take a Iran war. (Ironically, the U.S. imports liberties of stock traders anyway?), Rea­ consistent position: if abortion is mur­ practically no oil from the Gulf, un­ ganworked to escalate toward infinity der, then all women who engage in like Western Europe and Japan, the insane "war against drugs." Far abortion are murderers. But it took only where there was no hysteria and who from the 1970s movement toward re­ a day for his handlers to pull George certainly sent no warships to the pealing marijuana laws, an ever greater back from the abyss of logic, and to ad­ Gulf.) In one of the most bizarre flow of men and resources-countless vocate only criminalizing the doctors, events in the history of warfare, the billions of dollars-are being hysterical­ the hired hands of the women who get Iraqi sinking of the U.S.S. Stark was ly poured into combatting a drug "prob­ abortions. dismissed instantly-and without in­ lem" that clearly gets worse in direct Perhaps the Gipper cannot be direct­ vestigation, and in the teeth of consid­ proportion to the intensity of the "war." ly blamed-but certainly he has set the erable evidence to the contrary-as an The outbreak of drug fascism, more­ moral climate-for the increasingly sav­ "accident," followed immediately by over, is a superb illustration of the inter­ age Puritanism of the 1980s: the virtual blaming Iran (!) and using the sinking connectedness of civil liberty and outlawry of smoking, the escalating pro­ as an excuse to step up our pro-Iraq economic freedom. Under cover of com­ hibition of pornography, even the par­ intervention in the war. This was fol­ batting drugs, the government has tial bringing back of Prohibition lowed by a U.S. warship's sinking of cracked down on our economic and fi­ (outlawing drunken driving, raising the a civilian Iranian airliner, murdering nancial privacy, so that carrying cash legal drinking age to 21, making bar­ hundreds of civilians, and blaming­ has become prima facie evidence of tenders-or friendly hosts-legally re­ you guessed it!-the Iranian govern­ "laundering" drug money. And so the sponsible for someone else's drunken ment for this catastrophe. More government steps up its long-cherished driving, etc.) alarming than these actions of the campaign to get people to abstain from Under Reagan, the civil liberties bal­ Reagan Administration was the su­ cash and into using government­ ance has been retipped in favor of the pine and pusillanimous behavior of controlled banks. The government is al­ government and against the people: re­ the media, in allowing the Gipper to ready insinuating foreign exchange con­ stricting our freedom to obtain govern­ get away with all this. trols-now the legal obligation to ment documents under the Freedom of As we all know only too well, the "report" large amounts of cash taken Information Act and stepping up the height of Reagan's Teflon qualities came out of the country-into our personal penalties on privately printed and dis­ with Iran-Contra. At the time, I naively and economic life. seminated news about activities of the thought that the scandal would finish And every day more evil drugs are government, on the one hand; more the bastard off. But no one saw anything being found that must be denounced "freedom" for our runaway secret po­ wrong with the Administration's jailing and outlawed: the latest is the dread lice, the CIA, to restrict the printing of private arms salesmen to Iran, while at menace of anabolic steroids. As part of news, and to wiretap private individu­ the very same time engaging in arms this futile war, we are being urged by als, on the other. And to cap its hypocri­ sales to Iran itself. In Reagan's America, the Reaganites to endure compulsory sy, as it escalated its war on drugs, the apparently anything, any crookery, any Liberty 17 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 aggression or mass murder, is OK if al- you see, that's okay with the Reaganites, erupted in the U.S. during the 1970s. legedly performed for noble, patriotic because the Cambodian Commies are Did he perform this task consciously? motives. Only personal greed is consid- guerrilla fighters against the Vietnamese Surely too difficult a feat for a man bare­ ered a no-no. (pro-Soviet) Commies, who by defini- ly compos. No, Reagan was wheeled into I have not yet mentioned the great tion are evil. Pol Pot's butchers as "free- performing this task by his Establish­ foreign-policy triumph of the Reagan dom fighters" show us that, in the ment handlers. Administration: the invasion and con- arsenal of the Reaganite Right, "free- The task of co-optation needed to be quest of tiny Grenada, a pitiful little is- dom," like "taxes" and many other cru- done because the 1970s, particularly land-country with no army, air force, or cial words, means, as in the case of 1973-75, were marked by an unusual navy. A "rescue" operation was Humpty Dumpty, whatever they choose it and striking conjunction of crises- launched to save U.s. medical students to. crises that fed on each other to lead to a who never sought our deliverance. Even Grenada was the perfect war as far sudden and cumulative disillusionment though the enemy consisted of a hand- as many conservatives (and apparently with the federal government. It was this ful of Cuban construction workers, it much of the American public) were con- symbiosis of anti-government reaction still took us a week to that led me to develop finish the Grenadans my "case for libertari- off, during the course Reagan's handlers I annoyed by the stubborn old an optimism" during of which the three coot's sticking to "no new taxes," finessed the old boy the mid-1970s, in the wings of our armed b . 1 11' h h b d·If. expectation of a rapid forces tripped over Y SImp y ca Ing t e p enomenon y a IJJerent name. escalation of libertari- each other and our mil- "Let's close another loophole, Mr. President." an influence in itary distinguished it- "We-e-ell, OK, then, so long as we're not raising America. self by bombing a 1973-74 saw the Grenadan hospital. The taxes." abject failure of the operation was as much ------Nixon wage-price con­ a botch as the Carter attempt to rescue cerned: it was quick and easy to win, trol program, and the development of the American hostages. The only differ- with virtually no risk of loss, and al- something Keynesians assumed could ence was that this time the enemy was lowed ample opportunities to promote never happen: the combination of dou­ helpless. the military (and their Commander-in- ble-digit inflation and a severe recession. But we won didn't we? Didn't we re- Chief) as heroes while bragging up the High unemployment and high inflation deem the U.S. loss in Vietnam and allow victory on television-in short, allowing happened again, even more intensely, America to "stand tall"? Yes, we did the U. S. to glory in its status as a bully. during the greater recession of 1979-82. win. We beat up on a teeny country, and (It helped eradicate the awful memory Since Keynesianism rests on the idea that even botched that! If that is supposed to of Vietnam, which was the perfect war government should pump in spending make Americans stand tall, then far bet- for American centrist liberals: virtually during recessions and take out spending ter we sit short. Anyway, it's about time impossible to win, horribly expensive in during inflationary booms, what happens we learned that Short is Beautiful. terms of men and property-and best of when both occur at the same time? As The U.S. war against the Contras on all, it could go on forever without reso- Rand would say: Blankout! There is no the other hand, which has been conduct- lution, like the War on Poverty, fueling answer. And so, there was disillusion­ ed at enormous expense and waged their sense of guilt while providing safe ment in the government's handling of hand-in-hand with Guatemalan, Hondu- but exciting jobs for members of their the macro-economy, deepening during ran, and Salvadoran dictators, is going techno-bureaucratic class.) the accelerating inflation of the 1970s and down the drain, despite illegal CIA min- While the American masses do not the beginnings of recession in1979. ing of harbors and injury' to neutral want war with Russia or even aid to the At the same time, people began to be shipping. Even the nearly comatose bandit Contras, they do want an ever- fed up, increasingly and vocally, with American public is giving up on the expanding military and other aggravat- high taxes: income taxes, property taxes, idea of supporting bandit guerrillas, so ed symbols of a "strong," "tough" sales taxes, you name it. Especially in long as they are anti-Communist, de- America, an America that will, John the West, an organized tax rebel move­ spite the best efforts of Ollie and Secord Wayne-like, stomp on teeny pests like ment developed, with its own periodi­ and Singlaub and Abrams and all the Commie Grenada, or, perhaps, any very cals and organizations. However rest of the war crowd. small island that might possess the tone misguided strategically, the spread of The Reagan Administration's contin- and the ideology of the Ayatollah. the tax rebellion signalled a growing dis- ued aid and support to Pol Pot in Cam- illusion with big government. I was bodia, the most genocidal butcher of our Setting the Stage: privileged to be living in California dur- time, is more reprehensible but less visi- The Anti-Government ing the election year of 1978, when Prop- ble to most Americans. As a result, Pol Rebellion of the 1970s osition 13 was passed. It was a Pot's thugs are mobilizing at this very I am convinced that the historic func- genuinely inspiring sight. In the face of moment on the Thai border to return tion of Ronald Reagan was to co-opt, hysterical opposition and smears from and take over Cambodia as soon as the eviscerate, and ultimately destroy the the entire California Establishment, Vietnamese pull out, presumably to substantial wave of anti-governmental, Democratic and Republican, Big Busi­ renew their bizarre mass murders. But and quasi-libertarian, sentiment that ness and labor, academics, economists,

18 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 and all of the press, the groundswell for 1971, a very bright editor at Macmillan, Two important new ingredients en­ Prop 13 burgeoned. Everyone was Tom Mandel, called me and asked me to tered into, and helped reshape, the con­ against it but the people. If the eventual write a book on the subject (it was to be­ servative movement during the mid triumph of Ronald Reagan is the best come For a New Liberty). Not a libertari­ 1970s. One was the emergence of a small case against "libertarian populism," an himself, Mandel told me that he but vocal and politically powerful group Prop 13 was the best case in its favor. believed that libertarianism would be­ of neo-conservatives (neocons), who Also exhilarating was the smashing come a very important ideology in a few were able, in a remarkably short time, to defeat of U.S. imperialism in Vietnam in years-and he turned out to be right. seize control of the think tanks, the opin­ 1975-exhilarating because this first loss So libertarianism was on a roll in the ion-moulding institutions, and finally of a war by the United States, many of 1970s. And then Something Happened. the politics, of the conservative move­ us believed, was bound to get Ameri­ ment. As ex-liberals, the neocons were cans to rethink the disastrous warmon­ Enter the NeoCons greeted as important new converts from gering bipartisan foreign policy that had What happend was Ronald Wilson the enemy. More importantly, as ex­ plagued us since the unlamented days Blithering Reagan. Obviously Reagan Trotskyites, the neocons were veteran of Woodrow Wilson. did not suddenly descend out of the politicos and organizers, schooled in On the civil liberties front, the de clouds in 1980. He had been the cher­ Marxian cadre organizing and in manip­ facto legalization of marijuana was a ished candidate of the conservative ulating the levers of power. They were sign that the nonsense of drug prohibi­ movement, its chosen route to power, shrewdly eager to place their own peo­ tion would soon be swept away. (Ye ever since Goldwater's defeat. Goldwa­ ple in crucial opinion-moulding and gods! Was that only a decade ago?) Infla­ ter was too blunt and candid, too much money-raising positions, and in ousting tionary recession; high taxes; prohibition an unhandleable Real Person. What was those not willing to submit to the neocon laws; defeat in foreign war; across the needed was a lovable, manipulable icon. program. Understanding the importance board, the conditions seemed admirable Moreover, Goldwater's principles were of financial support, the neocons knew for a growing and triumphant too hard-edged: he was way too much a how to sucker Old Right businessmen libertarianism. domestic libertarian, and he was too into giving them the monetary levers at And to top it off, the Watergate crisis much an eager warmonger. Both his li­ their numerous foundations and think (my particular favorite) destroyed the bertarianism and his passion for nuclear tanks. In contrast to free-market econo- t~st of the American mists, for example, the masses in the Presiden­ neocons were eager to cy. For the first time in As part of its war on drugs, the Reaganites propose manipulate patriotic over a hundred years, compulsory urine testing (supervised, of course, since symbols and ethical the concept of impeach­ doctrines, doing the ment of the President otherwise the testee might be able to purchase and sub­ microequivalent of became, first thinkable, stitute black-market drug-free urine). In this grotesque Reagan and Bush's and then a living and proposal, government is not only not off our backs, but wrapping themselves glorious process. For a in the American Flag. while, I feared that is insisting on joining us in the bathroom .. Wrapping themselves, Jimmy Carter, with his also, in such patriotic lovable cardigan sweat- symbols as The Fram- er, would restore Americans' faith in confrontation with the Soviet Union ers and the Constitution, as well as Fami­ their president, but soon that fear scared the bejesus out of the American ly Values, the neocons were easily able to proved groundless. masses, as well as the more astute lead­ outflank free-market types and keep Surely, it is no accident that it was ership of the conservative movement. them narrowly confined to technical eco­ precisely in this glorious and sudden A reconstituted conservative move­ nomic issues. In short the neocons were anti-government surge that libertarian ment would have to drop any libertari­ easily able to seize the moral and patriot­ ideas and libertarian scholarship began an ideology or concrete policies, except to ic "high ground." to spread rapidly in the United States. provide a woolly and comfortable mood The only group willing and able to And it was in 1971 that the tiny Libertar­ for suitably gaseous anti-government challenge theneocons on their own mo­ ian Party emerged, in 1972 that its first, rhetoric and an improved foreign policy ralizing or philosophic turf was, of embryonic presidential candidacy was that would make sure that many more course, the tiny handful of libertarians; launched, and 1973 when its first impor­ billions would go into the military­ and outright moral libertarianism, with tant race was run, for mayor of New industrial complex, to step up global its opposition to statism, theocracy, and York City. The Libertarian Party contin­ pressure against Communism, but foreign war, could never hope to get to ued to grow rapidly, almost exponen­ avoiding an actual nuclear war. This last first base with conservative business­ tially, during the 1970s, reaching a point was important: As much as they men, who, even at the best of times dur­ climax with the Clark campaign for gov­ enjoy the role of the bully, neither the ing the Old Right era, had never been ernor of California during the Prop 13 Establishment nor the American people happy about individual personal liberty, year of 1978, and with the Clark cam­ want to risk nuclear war, which might,

Liberty 19 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 Pentagon, or toward the precious sym­ In economic matters, the neocons breaking the detente with Russia over bol of the Nation-State, the U.S. flag. showed no more love of liberty, though the Afghanistan imbroglio and in influ­ The neocons were (and remain this is obscured by the fact that the neo­ encing Carter to get rid of the dove today) New Dealers, as they frankly de­ cons wish to trim the welfare state of its Cyrus Vance as Secretary of State and to scribe themselves, remarkably without post-Sixties excrescences, particularly put foreign policy power into the hands raising any conservative eyebrows. They since these were largely designed to aid of the Polish emigre hawk and Rockefell­ are what used to be called, in more pre­ black people. What the neocons want is er Trilateralist, Zbigniew Brzezinski. In cise ideological days, "extreme right­ a smaller, more "efficient" welfare state, the meantime, the neocons pushed the wing Social Democrats." In other words, within which bounds they would gra­ hysterically hawkish CIA "B" Team re­ they are still Roosevelt-Truman­ ciously allow the market to operate. The port, wailing about alleged Soviet nucle­ Kennedy-Humphrey Democrats. Their market is acceptable as a narrow instru­ ar superiority, which in turn paved the objective, as they moved (partially) into mental device; their view of private way for the vast gift of spending handed the Republican Party and the conserva­ property and the free market is essen­ to the military-industrial complex by the tive movement, was to reshape it to be­ tially identical to Gorbachev's in the So­ incoming Reagan Administration. The come, with minor changes, a Roosevelt­ viet Union. Afghanistan and "B" Team hysterias, Truman-etc. movement; that is, a liberal Why did the Right permit itself to be added to the humiliation by the Ayatol­ movement shorn of the dread "L" word bamboozled by the neocons? Largely be- lah, managed not only to kill off the be­ and of post-McGovern devilled Carter liberalism. To verify Administration, but this point all we have After eight years of Reagan, the mood of the Amer­ also to put the boots to to do is note how many ican masses is to expand the goodies of the welfare­ non-intervention and times Roosevelt, Tru­ to prepare the nation man, Kennedy et. al., warfare state (though not to increase taxes to pay for for a scrapping of the properly reviled by these goodies), to swagger abroad and be very tough "post-Vietnam syn­ conservatives while with nations that can't fight back, and to crack down drome" and a return to they were _ alive, are the warmongering of now lauded, even can­ on the liberties of groups they don't like or whose val­ the pre-Vietnam Era. onized, by the current ______ues or culture they disagree with .. dacyTheof Reagan1980 wascandi­bril- neocon-run movement, from Ronnie Reagan on liantly designed to down. And no one calls them on this Or­ cause the conservatives had been inexor­ weld a coalition providing the publie's wellian revision of conservative move­ ably drifting Stateward in the same instinctive anti-government mood with ment history. manner. In response to the crushing de­ sweeping, but wholly nonspecific, liber­ As statists-to-the-core the neocons feat of Goldwater, the Right had become tarian rhetoric, as a convenient cover for ­ had no problem taking the lead in cru­ ever less libertarian and less principled, the diametrically opposite policies de­ sades to restrict individual liberties, and ever more attuned to the "responsi­ signed to satisfy the savvy and political­ whether it be in the name of rooting out bilities" and moderations of Power. It is ly effective members of that coalition: "subversives," or of inculcating broadly a far cry from three decades ago when the neocons, the Buckleyite cons, the religious ("}udeo-Christian") or moral Bill Buckley used to say that he too is an Moral Majority, the Rockefellers, the values. They were happy to form a cozy "anarchist" but that we have to put off military-industrial complex, and the var­ alliance with the Moral Majority, the all thoughts of liberty until the "interna­ ious Establishment special interests al­ mass of fundamentalists who entered tional Communist conspiracy" is ways clustering at the political trough. the arena of conservative politics in the crushed. Those old Chodorovian liber­ mid-1970s. The fundamentalists were fi­ tarian days are long gone, and so is Na­ Intellectual Corruption nally goaded out of their quietist millen­ tional Review as any haven for libertarian In the face of this stark record, how arian dreams Lysander Spooner. Why spread of pornography, and the visible the Coalition for a Democratic Majority does the public obey the State, and go decay of the public school system. The and the Committee on the Present Dan­ further to endorse statist policies that entry of the Moral Majority transformed ger. By means of these two interlocking benefit the Power Elite at the public's American politics, not the least by fur­ groups and their unusual access to in­ own expense? The answer, wrote Spoon­ nishing the elite cadre of neocons with a fluential media, the neocons were able to er, is that the State is supported by three mass base to guide and manipulate. pressure the Carter Administration into powerful groups: knaves, who know

20 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 what is going on and benefit from State ing the late 1970s, libertarian intellectu­ intellectual corruption spread rapidly, in rule; dupes, who are fooled into think­ als and free-market economists were proportion to the height and length of ing that State rule is in their and every­ growing in number, but they were still jobs in the Reagan Administration. Life­ one else's interest; and cowards, who very few, and they had not yet estab­ long opponents of budget deficits re­ know the truth but are afraid to pro­ lished institutions with firm ties to jour­ markably began to weave sophisticated claim that the emperor has no clothes. I nalistic and mass opinion. Hence, the and absurd apologias, now that the think we can refine Spooner's analysis libertarian mood, but not the informed great Reagan was piling them up, claim­ and merge the Knave and Coward cate­ thought, of the masses, was ready for co­ ing, very much like the hated left-wing gories; after all, the renegade sellout optation, especially if led by a charis­ Keynesians of yore, that "deficits don't confronts the carrot and the stick: the matic, beloved President. matter." carrot of wealth, cushy jobs, and pres­ But we must not underweigh the im­ Shorn of intellectual support, the tige if he goes along with the Emperor; portance of the traitorous role per­ half-formed libertarian instincts of the and the stick of scorn, exclusion from formed by quasi-libertarian intellectuals American masses remained content with wealth, prestige, and jobs-and perhaps and free-market economists during the Reaganite rhetoric, and the actual dia­ worse'-:'if he fails to go along. The rea­ Reagan years. While their institutions metrically opposite policies got lost in son that Reagan got away with it-in were small and relatively weak, the the shuffle. addition to his aw-shucks "lovability"­ power and consistency of libertarian is that various powerful groups were ei­ thought had managed to bring them Reagan's Legacy ther duped or knave-cowardly corrupt­ considerable prestige and political influ­ Has the Reagan Administration ed into hailing his alleged triumphs and ence by 1980-especially since they of­ done nothing good in its eight ghastly deep-sixing his evident failures. fered an attractive and consistent years on earth, you might ask? Yes, it First, the powerful opinion- alternative to a statist system that was has done one good thing: it has repealed moulding media. It is conventional wis­ breaking down on all fronts. the despotic 55-mile-per-hour highway dom that media people are biased in But talk about your Knaves! In the speed limit. And that is it. favor of liberalism. No doubt. But that is history of ideological movements, there As the Gipper, at bloody long last, not important, because the media, espe­ have always been people willing to sell goes riding off into the sunset, he leaves cially elite media who have the mostto their souls and their principles. But us with a hideous legacy. He has suc­ lose, are also particularly subject to the never in history have so many sold out ceeded in destroying the libertarian pub­ knave/coward syndrome. If they pan­ for so pitifully little. Hordes of libertari­ lic mood of the late 1970s, and replaced der to Reaganism, they get the approval an and free-market intellectuals and ac­ it with fatuous and menacing patriotic of the deluded masses, their customers, tivists rushed to Washington to whore symbols of the Nation-State, especially and they get the much-sought-after ac­ after lousy little jobs, crummy little The Flag, which he first whooped up in cess to the President and to other big­ grants and sporadic little conferences. It his vacuous reelection campaign of 1984, wigs in government. And access means is bad enough to sell out; it is far worse aided by the unfortunate coincidence of scoops, carefully planted exclusive to be a two-bit whore. And worst of all the Olympics being held at Los Angeles. leaks, etc. Any sort of effective opposi­ in this sickening spectacle were those (Who will soon forget the raucous bay­ tion to the President means, on the other who went into the tank without so much ing of the chauvinist mobs: "USA! hand, loss of access; the angering of Rea­ as a clear offer: betraying the values and USA!" every time some American came gan-deluded masses; and also the anger­ principles of a lifetime in order to posi­ in third in some petty event?) He has ing of their bosses, the owners of the tion themselves in hopes of being proposi­ succeeded in corrupting libertarian and press and television, who are far more tioned. And so they wriggled around free-market intellectuals and institu­ conservative than their journalist the seats of power in Washington. The tions, although in Ronnie's defense it employees. One of Reagan's most notable achievements was his emasculation COOt1c,;' 0 ~ of the liberal media because of his personal popularity with the masses. E"c.C1110H1ic. AJv;sor-S l Note, for example, the wimpy media treatment of Iran-Contra as compared to their glorious attack on Watergate. If this is liberal media bias, then the liberals need to be saved from their friends. If the media were willing to go along with Reaganite duplicity and hokum, then so were our quasi­ libertarian intellectual leaders. It is true of the libertarian-inclined mass- ~==:::!IFiI" es as it has been always true of the BelQO conservative masses: they tend to be not too swift in the upper story. Dur- "You've got the wrong room-the Treasury Department is that way." Liberty 21 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 must be noted that the fault lies with the of a giant American flag; and some pup­ different.) corrupted and not with the corrupter. petmaster would have gotten him to Perhaps, after all, Ronald Reagan and Itis generally agreed by political ana­ give his winsome headshake and some almost all the rest of us will finally get lysts that the ideological mood of the ventriloquist would have imitated the our fondest wish: the election forever and public, after eight years of Reaganism, is golden tones: "We-e-ell ..." (Why not? ever of the mummified icon King Ronnie. in support of economic liberalism (that is, After all, the liVing reality of the last Now there is a legacy for our an expanded welfare state), and social four years has not been a helluva lot descendants! 0 conservatism (that is, the suppression of civil liberties and the theocratic outlaw­ ing of immoral behavior). And, on for­ Murray Rothbard, liThe 1988 Election," continued from page 11 eign policy, of course, they stand for militaristic chauvinism. After eight years the extreme grass-rootsers (e.g. Means, grass-roots. On the contrary, that we of Ronnie, the mood of the American Dodge), who would have us abandon must redouble our efforts to wage suc­ masses is to expand the goodies of the presidential campaigns and concentrate cessful presidential campaigns, because welfare-warfare state (though not to in­ on a few local elections "which we can from such campaigns more grass-roots bleSSings will flow. crease taxes to pay for these goodies), to really win." Well, we've already won And I can't go for the pap that "votes swagger abroad and be very tough with several teeny, local elections, and while don't matter." Of course, votes matter; nations that can't fight back, and to crack this is great, these victories have hardly getting votes is, after all, the point of run­ down on the liberties of groups they invigorated the Party as a whole. No matter how much we all love Podunk, ning in elections. In the first place, vote don't like or whose values or culture let's face it, a victory there doesn't mean totals are perceived by everyone, includ­ they disagree with. a helluva lot outside of Podunk's mar­ ing the media and the public, as the cru­ It is a decidedly unlovely and unli­ keting area. As Arthur and many other cial test of electoral success. The media bertarian wasteland, this picture of people have argued, we can't expect im­ and public exaggerate the importance of America 1989, and who do we have to mediate victory; the fight for liberty is a vote totals, because they don't under­ thank for it? Several groups: the neocons protracted struggle, and will not be stand the goals of an ideological party. who organized it; the vested interests over in a day. The grass-rootsers over­ But they do have an important point. and the Power Elite who run it; the liber­ look the obvious fact that the presiden­ Vote totals, after all, are the gauge of tarians and free marketeers who sold out tial campaign is our centerpiece; not how many people have bought our mes­ for it; and above all, the Universally be­ only does it get the national publicity, it sage to the extent of pulling the lever for loved Ronald Wilson Reagan, Who energizes ourselves and our own our candidates. There are, to be sure, pace Made It Possible. troops. The national ticket defines our Bergland, many other important criteria As he rides off into retirement, glow­ party, and, without it, the entire party for us: e.g. growth in Party membership, ing with the love of the American public, would disintegrate and collapse into a and success in spreading our message. leaVing his odious legacy behind, one few local campaigns, and, then, quickly, But this does not mean we should over­ wonders what this hallowed dimwit into oblivion. It is the national ticket look the importance of votes. And be­ might possibly do in retirement that that energizes and invigorates the vari­ sides, very often, votes will correlate well could be at all worthy of the rest of his ous local campaigns throughout the with party membership and the spread political career. What very last triumph country. of the message. are we supposed to "win for the A disquieting development that Ar­ In assessing and evaluating our cam­ Gipper"? thur does not mention is how badly our paigns, we should not suffer from false He has tipped his hand: I have just star local Congressional races did this expectations followed by burnout; but, read that as soon as he retires, the Gip­ year. The LP had four outstanding con­ on the other hand, we should also not be per will go on a banquet tour on behalf gressional races, where credible, articu­ Pollyannas for whom everything is al­ of the repeal of the 22nd ("Anti-Third late, and hard-working candidates got a ways great, and ignore the accountability Term") Amendment-the one decent lot of publicity, raised a lot of money, of the campaign to volunteers, to thing the Republicans have accom­ seemingly did very well, and then ... contributors, or to the cause of liberty plished in the last four decades. The flopped badly, getting the same one to itself. 22nd Amendment was a well-deserved two percent of the vote that our numer­ To conclude: it should be dear from retrospective slap at FOR. It is typical of ous paper candidates earned. More spe­ the January issue of Liberty and from our the depths to which the GOP has fallen cifically, Jim Hedbor, Vermont, got only analysis that: the Libertarian Party is that in the last few years that Republi­ 0.75% of the total vote; Don Ernsberger, alive and well; that it did creditably, cans have been actually muttering about Pennsylvania, 2.8%; Dick Jacobs, Michi­ though not spectacularly, in the 1988 joining the effort to repeal this amend­ gan, 0.76%; John Vernon, California, election; that the Party is vital to the ment. If they are successful, then Ronald 1.9%. This, and not the Ron Paul vote cause of liberty and that all attempts to Reagan might be elected again, and re­ total, was the most disappointing as­ liquidate it, curtail it, or weaken its mes­ elected well into the 21st century. pectofthe campaign. sage should be repudiated; that LROC In our age of High Tech, I'm sure It seems to me that the lesson of ..~ should be sent packing and told to ped­ that his mere physical death could easily collapse of our star local campaigns is dle their papers to their "libertarian" have been overcome by his handlers and the reverse of that pushed by our gFass­ buddy George Bush; and that we must media mavens. Ronald Reagan will be rootsers: that salvation for the Party never lose sight of the centrality of our SUitably mummified, trotted out in front and the cause does not come from the presidential campaigns. -MNR 22 Liberty Article

A Kinder, Gentler Nation? Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in Canada by Michael I. Krauss

Conjure up a country blessed with supplies of natural resources too boundless to ever be consumed by its small population, and a near-at-hand resource-hungry neighbor willing to purchase them at top dollar. Imagine that this country's democratic tradition is not tainted bya legacy of slavery, and that its educated electo- rate is adept in the world's two major trading languages. Suppose moreover during World War II; etc.) They're not cialist New Democratic Party (NDP). that this state shares no border with even "Americans who like cold weath­ Both opposition leaders portrayed the third-world regimes anxious to export er." (The demand for Florida vacations election as involving one issue, the Free their demographic problems. Assume, has proven surprisingly inelastic in Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiated finally, that this land has a vast territory spite of a decade-long decline in the with the U.S. by Mulroney but held up to secure but still manages to maintain value of the Canadian dollar.) in Canada's Liberal-controlled Senate, one of the lowest defense commitments Canadians are indeed different from about which more later. The per capita in the world. Surely this Americans, in at least the following Conservatives (whose slogan, "Peace country would be the most prosperous ways: they are poorer and an awful lot and Prosperity, now and for the in the world, right? Right, unless it hap­ of them seem to want to remain so; they Future," was clearly modeled on the pens to be Canada, destined (according tend to frown on individual creativity 1984 Reagan platform), on the other to turn-of-the-century commentator and extol communitarian coercion; and hand, de-emphasizedFTA from the Goldwyn Smith) to remain "rich by na­ a possible majority of them fear foreign start. ture, but po,Or by policy." influences as much as does the most Peace there has almost always been The extraordinary election cam­ xenophobic fringe of Americans. Last in Canada. The country spends less of paign just concluded north of the bor­ but not least, a substantial number of its Gross Domestic Product (GOP) on der should put the lie, for a long time, Canadians perceive envy of the Yanks national defense than any OECD coun­ to the myth that Canadians are just (as as the public good needed to cement na­ try except Luxembourg, which has a the National Lampoon put it) "extremely tional unity. In the recent electoral cam­ tad less territory to patrol. Prosperity boring white Americans." Nor are the paign,these ugly Canadian traits barely there seems to be as well: over one mil­ Canadians "Americans who speak missed embarrassing the country and lion jobs have been created in Canada French" (most don't); or "Americans costing its citizens dearly. since 1984, and the country currently who aren't racist." (The few racially di­ enjoys the fastest growing economy in verse areas of the country have severe • the West. racial problems; it is commonplace to Won by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney Whether this prosperity is more see drunken Indians on the sidewalks after a bruising 50-day campaign, the than skin deep is an interesting ques­ of cities in Western Canada; 50% of Nov 21 election was a three-party race tion, though. The Canadian federal gov­ Saskatchewan's prison inmates are pitting the governing Progressive ernment annually runs colossal deficits, drawn from its 8% native population; Conservatives 1 against John Turner's to which must be added even larger Canada's Asians were brutally interned Liberals· and Edward Broadbent's so- prOVincial deficits generated by numer- Liberty 23 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 ous federal-provincial social programs. rest ofthe year ...); • June 1986: Justice Minister John Total Canadian deficits exceeded 5% of • implement severe cuts at the Oeft­ Crosbie faced controversy over his GOP from 1982 till 1987, according to leaning) Canadian Broadcasting sons' appointment as legal agents for DECO figures (the U.S. figure is about Corporation (CBC); the federal government in 3%). Canadian public debt in· 1987 • kill the Foreign Investment Review Newfoundland. Crosbie was also reached 68% of GDP (50% in the U.S.), Agency (FIRA), which had discou­ roundly criticized by the media and and Canada's foreign indebtedness (39% raged and at times prohibited by feminist picketers after calling of CDP) rivals Brazil's. Canadian gov­ American investment in Canada, radical Liberal MP Sheila Copps ernments absorbed fully 48% of national costing the country billions in capital "baby" during a heated debate in the wealth in 1986 (as compared to 37% in inflows and hundreds of thousands House ofCommons; the U.S.). It is worth repeating that these of jobs; • September 1985: Fisheries Minister John expenditures came about despite a free­ • dismantle the National Energy Fraser was forced by Mulroney to re­ ride on U.S. taxpayers' defense spend­ Program (NEP), which had resulted sign after it was revealed that he had ing: with similarly low military outlays in the nationalization (without com­ allowed tuna that he knew to be Washington would probably balance its pensation) of a share of Canada's pe­ "tainted" (smelly but not unsafe) to budget. Yet the deficit. has never been a troleum industry, as well as a be sold by private companies. pressing public concern for Canadians, massive transfer of wealth from Fraser's crime was that he felt that despite occasional op-ed laments for a Western Canada to Ontario and the market, not the government, population liVing well beyond its means Quebec. should determine the quality of and transferring the costs of prodigal so­ Most importantly for the new gov­ goods sold in the country; cial programs to future generations of ernment, the Prime Minister (who had • [same month]: Communications and taxpayers. proclaimed during his 1984 campaign Culture Minister Marcel Masse quit, The Mulroney government appeared for the leadership of the PCs that "free as it was confirmed that the Royal to have understood Canada's economic trade affects Canadian sovereignty, and Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) dilemma when it defeated the govern­ we will have none of it") took a crash was investigating allegations that he ing Liberals with an unprecedented 211 course in economics from Derek Burney, spent more than was allowed by fed­ seats (as against 40 Liberal and 30 NOP) then a top civil servant at External eral law during the election in September 1984. The new Prime Affairs, 3 and urged negotiating a trade campaign; Minister decreed an immediate freeze of agreement to President Reagan at the • December 1985: Environment Minister federal hiring and spending, and sum­ "Shamrock Summit" in Quebec City in Suzanne Blais-Grenier resigned after marily axed a few of the it was revealed more outrageous ------.. that she toured Liberal programs (such Canadians are different from Americans: they are western France in as the National Unity poorer and an awful lot of them seem to want to re- a private limou­ Agency, an agit-prop J I sine, at taxpayers' office created to pro- main so; they tend to frown on individual creativity expense (to discov­ mote the election of and extol communitarian coercion; and a possible ma- er her "roots"), friends of the federal h d during an official Liberals in Quebec). At jority Of them fear foreign influences as muc as oes visit to that the opening of the new the most xenophobic fringe of Americans. country; Parliament in • May 1986: Youth November 1984, Minister .Andree Mulroney declared that "the picnic has March 1985. Champagne was fired following the to stop," His Throne speech 2 promised Unfortunately, whatever may have leak of a letter in which she advised to: been the Mulroney commitment to freer party executives that summer em­ • reconsider the universality of many markets and less intrusive government, ployment programs would be direct­ social programs; these concerns were soon eclipsed by ed to members of the Young • slash Unemployment Insurance (UI) the need to salvage an administration Progressive Conservatives, so as to benefits by $1 billion. (All salaried mired in scandal. Was the Conservative boost membership; Canadians must pay into this fund. team more dishonest than is usually the • [same month]: Industry Minister Eight weeks' paid work entitles one case, or had their troops simply been Sinclair Stevens quit the cabinet amid to up to 51 weeks of UI payments at away from the troughs too long? The allegations

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Canadian dollar lost ground (from 83.5 and 43 NDP, gave Brian Mulroney cents to barely 80 cents in two weeks, an Canada's first back-to-back majority The famous Loompanics Unlimited Book Catalog - The Best Book Catalog In The World! incredible loss of national wealth) in government in 35 years. The Canadian Huge 8 Y2 x 11, more than 200 pages, with more lockstep with Liberal advances, these dollar has skyrocketed to near 85 cents than 500 of the most controversial and unusual claims seemed credible. One vivid TV books ever printed! You have to see it to believe U.S. since the election, and I predict it it. interview showed John Turner con­ will go higher. John Turner's disastrous Crime, police science, professional investiga­ demning a four-page spread in 35 dai­ political career is, mercifully, finished. tive techniques, concealing contraband, manu­ lies (paid for by 150 Canadian facturing illegal drugs, getting fake LD., survival, Socialism and isolationism have failed guerrilla warfare, hiding out, nomadic living, companies) as "intellectually dishon­ to gain ground. The Free Trade intelligence increase, heresy, forbidden philoso­ est," and vowing that "big business, led Agreement was pushed through a "hum­ phies, weapons, reality creation, paralegal skills, the Underground Economy, lockpicking, by American multinationals, are now bled Canadian Senate. All this is a won­ beating the system, little-known moneymaking trying to buy this election.... Canada is derful thing, for Canada, the U.S. and opportunities, revenge, self defense, tax avoi­ not for sale, and I don't believe sion, dropping out, retreating, weird ideas, and indeed (following the GATT debacle in much, much more! Canadian voters are for sale." In re­ Montreal in December) the world. But it sponse to the next question, Turner ad­ would be erroneous to see in the out­ ': ..fine subversive books, plus articles on tax fraud, mitted that he hadn't yet read the ad. draft resistanc:: and totalitarian computer use, come of the Canadian elections an ex­ among others... Newspapers reporting this interview plicit ratification of FTA, about which -Factsheet Five added that Turner had for many years the Canadian public remains ignorant sat on the board of a subsidiary (Bechtel '7n looking through this interesting catalog I can and apprehensive. More likely correct is see a number ofbooks that should be read to ad­ Canada) of an American multinational. the explanation that Canada's vote was vance or refresh us in the skills ofour vocation. .. " 3) Following the American lead, the an ultimate rejection of what may well -International Brotherhood Tories reacted to initial setbacks by hit­ Of Mercenaries be the most extreme display of political ting Canadians with the most extensive demagoguery seen in North America "Fake IDs, greed, ways of cheating on college and expensive two-week bombardment this century. exams, and deserted islands. What do these of advertising the country had ever seemingly unrelated things have in common? All It is said of Walter Mondale's 1984 are topics ofbooks published by Loompanics Un­ seen. The publicity diverted attention campaign that it was "interest-group lib­ limited" from FTA to the flagrant economic in­ eralism in its worst possible incarna­ -Boston Phoenix competence of the Liberal team (clearly tion." Well, folks, welcome to Canada, "This catalog is a litmus test ofyour real feelings the weakest Liberal slate fielded this where a kinder, gentler nation is still about freedom" century). The average Canadian viewer reeling from a close brush with -Science Fiction Review saw 20 TV spots during the final week Peronism. 0 of the campaign, some of them high­ "How responsible is it to promulgate, in a violent and invasive world, material that ADVOCATES lighting Turner's dismal record as Notes violence and invasion?" Finance Minister for 2 1/2 years in the The name was changed from -The Match! 1970s (unemployment had increased; in­ "Conservative" to ITrogressive Conservative" at the instigation of Prime "Anarcho-libertarians worth their salt-ofthe-earth flation had doubled and greatly exceed­ Minister John Diefenbaker in 1958. should know about Loompanics Unlimited .. which ed the American rate; the civil service publishes its own unusual titles and runs a book Diefenbaker feared that Canadians might service carrying many more. " grew at twice the rate of private employ­ misinterpret the Tory moniker as a sign of -Neal Wilgus ment; the Canadian dollar fell for the opposition to the all-encompassing wel­ first time below $1.00 U.S.; federal fare state. The new "Progressive" designa­ ': ..indeed it is the best book catalog in the world. spe.nding had increased at a rate of tion has allowed the PC's infinite Books on sex, drugs, and how to build your own flexibility in this field, as we shall see. 23% bombs and do LOTS of illegal things. Redefines Iyr; etc.). The Liberals' response 2 A Throne speech, read by the Queen's rep­ your namby-pamby liberal definition of the word consisted of wrapping themselves ever resentative but prepared by the cabinet is 'counterculture. ' Books that scared even us. " l more tightly in the Maple Leaf flag a declaration of intention at the opening of -Crow (some zealots publicly burned the each Parliament, putting the country on notice as to the bills the government (Le., '71's as ifCOEVOLUTION QUARTERLY were American one), but this appeared weak the Cabinet) intends to propose to the ruthlessly re-edited by Friedrich Nietzche. " and indecisive. -Los Angeles Reader House of Conunons. ______1 ml The ultimate Conservative victory 3 Burney was named Canadian Ambassador To receive your copy of The was a clear-cut one. It is simply false to to the United States at the outset of the Best Book Catalog In The claim, as have some U.S. commentators, 1988 election campaign. World!, fill out the coupon 4 "Estimates vary greatly, but it seems that below and send it along with that Mulroney was victorious only in Canada sees about 20% of all the world's $3.00 to: French Canada. The Conservatives won fresh water runs through its land. Only an Quebec, Ontario and the West, with the Loompanics Unlimited infinitesimal portion of this water is used: PO Box 1197 Liberals obtaining a modest majority of the remainder flows into the oceans. Port Townsend, WA seats in the welfare-dependent 5 For a detailed account of the genesis, the 98368 Maritimes. The Tories remained contents, and the probable effects of FfA, Canada's only national party, as the see M. Krauss, IThe Canada-U.s. Free Name _ Trade Agreement: Now or Never," Cato Address _ NDP won none of the 107 seats east of Institute Policy Analysis #105, May 3, City "_ Ontario and the Liberals only 6 of 86 1988. State Zip _ Essay Guns and Guilt: The Impulse Toward Gun Control by Allan Levite

The importance of facts and meaningful statistics in such a volatile issue as gun control should not be slighted-but these are not the only aspects of the problem worthy of consideration ...

Fe-w issues are more heated and controversial than gun control, especially in its current mq.nifestation of handgun ownership bans. But are handguns the real issue? In acci­ dents, shotguns kill approximately fives times more people than handguns, even though the numbers of hand­ guns and shotguns in the U.S. are ap­ proximately equal. 1 It would therefore be foolish to think that gun confiscation The fact that the welfare state has made what sort of person would use guilt as a would end "\vith handguns; it more like­ things worse for the poor, as Charles weapon? Someone who is intimately fa­ ly would begin with them. This pros­ Murray aptly demonstrated, 2 is of miliar with it. But under what circum­ pect becomes clear when we examine course withheld from public scrutiny. stances would someone be so familiar the typical appeals used by the gun con­ No one could be made very remorseful with guilt? trol movement. about wanting to resist the welfare state It is guilt-ridden people who so en­ if it were publicly acknowledged to be a thusiastically make themselves believe Guilt As a Weapon failure. that their opponents harbor selfish, The gun control movement's use of In a 1986 article, Lucy Braun (a for­ base, mean motives. How else could guilt as a weapon is obvious to anyone mer assistant editor of Reason maga­ they exalt their own motives as pure who has listened to its appeals. If one zine) described her encounters with and noble by comparison? declines to support their cause, one political opponents in college, .and their seems partly responsible when some­ use of guilt as a weapon against her: The Role of Social Class one else misuses a firearm. (Or, at least, ... when I dissented, my motives, To explain why so many different one seems to lack compassion for the rather than my beliefs, were ques­ people come to use the same tactics, let victim.) Of course, we should consider tioned. It is, after all, easier to dis­ us take an imaginary journey to the ourselves as being in good company arm political opponents by backwoods timber country of the here, for this is precisely what has been slandering their character than by Pacific Northwest. We enter a rustic insinuated about the taxpayers for the facing and discussing legitimate tavern and observe that all the custom­ last half-century. Do the taxpayers have ideological differences. 3 ers are loggers. Every conversation con­ the audacity to think they have the And it is much easier to slander some­ cerns some aspect of the logging life. right to spend their entire paychecks as one's motives and make him appear Would we call this a conspiracy? No, they please? If social spending went un­ heartless and uncaring than to explain we would instead conclude that the log­ derfunded, the expected increase in away the Second and Ninth gers' common background was the destitution would presumably be the Amendments. cause of their unanimity of interests. taxpayers' fault. Who wants to think of To determine why anyone would This same principle explains, for ex­ himself as heartless enough to permit res'ort to using such. tactics, we must ample, the near-unanimous consensus hunger or homelessness? ask what kind of person would use of major-media journalists on the gun This is why most people hate the guilt as a weapon. If a gun owner control issue. The journalists attended welfare state yet continue to vote for it. needed a weapon, he would presuma­ the same colleges or the same kind of Most citizens do not know how to resist bly use a gun. A samurai would use a colleges, studied the same curricula, be­ guilt, especially when it comes from un­ sword. J. Paul Getty would have used came familiar with the same writers, expected quarters and is disguised as money as a weapon, and Bruce Lee and encountered the same range of something else, such as compassion. would have employed Kung-fll. So views. They also came from, or soon Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 moved into; the same social class, with When a normally sensitive, impressiona­ ties and police forces, whom the liberals its similar spectrum of values and atti­ ble newscaster, who has a suburban and journalists themselves have so often tudes. In short, the. journalists went to home and a BMW, airs a story about shown to be brutal and corrupt, are the the university and became "liberals," starvation or homelessness, what else same fellows to whom citizens' guns which is neither a surprise nor a could he be expected to feel? He has should be forfeited. coincidence. done nothing wrong; he has not contrib­ What the journalists and the gun A good case can be made for the as­ uted in any way to these problems; yet control partisans really want is to be sertion that the journalists' unswerving he may feel as if he had. One's surname symbolically punished by an authority support of gun confiscation is sociologi­ need not be Rockefeller or Kennedy or figure such as the state. And what kind cally, not politically, based. If logic dic­ Fonda for one to feel remorse about not of people would want to be punished? tated their views, the journalists would being poor; all one need do is not be Would it be poor people, or rich journal­ have to spend eleven times more effort poor. ists and cartoonists? Would it be labor- supporting a return to ers, or lawyers and Prohibition, since alco­ professional politi­ hol is at least eleven Intellectuals never blame poor and average people cians? Would it be peo­ times more deadly than ple who live in the handguns. 4 They could for any problems, since intellectuals regret being nei­ inner cities, or some of not cite Prohibition's ther poor nor average. Nor will they blame criminals the people who live in failure in practice, nor (unless they are white-collar criminals), since crimi­ comfortable suburbs its universal flouting, like Oak Park and as reasons for not sup­ nals are also poor. Morton Grove, Illinois, porting it now, since where handgun bans gun control laws are were passed? Why else also widely flouted and also fail in prac­ And so, when the lords of the wel­ would the gun control movement have tice. 5 Its proponents, in fact, often claim fare state imply that anyone who fails to so many notables and so few poor peo­ that they expect no great results from it support their efforts is a heartless misan­ ple? Fortunately, it is just as hard to and favor it more as a symbolic gesture, thrope, journalists swallow this cant make poor people feel guilty as it is easy a moral statement, than as a practical without protest, having accustomed to make the affluent and educated feel proposal. (They obviously do not expect themselves to think in these terms. What guilty. even a bare majority of gun owners is worse, they make millions of others meekly to turn in their weapons if or­ believe it too. Who Is To Blame? dered to do so.) Similarly, when the gun control par­ When we understand the tempera­ Symbolic gestures are a special field. tisans tell journalists that all those who ment of guilt, a great many political Who ever heard of poor people ,or work­ fail to support their efforts are callous viewpoints become clear. Are people ing-class people making symbolic ges­ boors who lack compassion for victims dying of cancer? The intellectuals say it tures? This is a class war in reverse. of gun accidents, the journalists believe must be the fault of the cigarette manu­ Whatever resentment against gun own­ this too. Why not? All guilt trips are facturers. Are drunk drivers taking a ers exists is based on the fact that they created equal; the context differs but the heavy toll on the highways? The intel­ live mainly in the lower and lower­ content is identical. Big-city journalists lectuals say it must be the fault of the al­ middle classes, with corresponding so­ are, to one extent or another, intellectu­ cohol industry. The worst insult they cial attitudes. All in the Family may have als, and guilt and intellectuals go togeth­ can hurl at anyone is pecuniary motiva­ been the best example yet of how er like love and marriage used to. tion. This is understandable when we wealthy Hollywood liberals disdain the consider that the savants are already workingman whom fifty years ago they Whom Do We Trust? guilt-ridden about money and the status eulogized. The gun control movement does not it gives. They cannot view money as mo­ The point is not that liberals, journal­ seem to question the right of the police, rally good or even neutral. ists, and intellectuals are prejudiced the military, and other authorities to Where there is guilt, there must be against the lower classes. They are not. possess firearms. It questions only the someone to blame. Intellectuals never The point is that they feel guilty about rights of citizens. But why does it trust blame "human nature" or "the way of not being poor. To have to admit that the government so much more than peo­ the world." They look instead for some one lives in such a safe neighborhood ple in general? One might say that this category of people to blame. But whom? that one feels no need to have a gun for reflects ignorance about government Obviously, poor and average people protection is an embarrassing reminder. usurpation and corruption, but the gun will not be blamed for any problems, control people are not unaware of these since intellectuals regret being neither Journalists and Guilt dangers. Who has done more to publi­ poor nor average. Criminals will not be Journalists are always observers and cize and condemn police brutality than blamed (unless they are white-collar never participants. They also have great­ the liberals and journalists? We have criminals), since criminals are also poor. er-than-average affluence and educa­ learned so much about police malprac­ Pete Shields, Chairman of Handgun tion. In Western cultures, these tice in the last quarter-century because Control, Inc., could never blame his characteristics alone can be enough to the journalists have told us so much produce guilt at least part of the time. about it. And now these same authori- continued on page 34

30 Liberty Essay Liberty and Death What Do You Do When Your Mother Asks You to Kill Her? by M. H. Endres

How do you feel about suicide? Does it violate your moral principles? How do you feel about assisting someone else to commit suicide? Does action that results in the death of another person-at that person's request-constitute aggression? What is "action on your part?" Furnishing the means to commit sui- cide? Placing sleeping tablets on a per­ son's tongue and holding the glass of life quality-and she did it knowing me." A moment later, she said, liquid to wash them down? Do we that it was just buying time, not curing "Please?" Then tears began to flow have to draw a line at all? her disease. Toward the end, when down her cheeks. I don't remember Let me tell a short and very person­ chemo was no longer recommended what I did then. My next recollection al story-one that caused me no small because of the damage it was doing to was standing outside her hospital room amount of pain and agony and re­ the rest of her body, she accepted the door, forehead resting against the con­ quired me to rethink a number of pre­ fact that she was going to die. crete wall, crying with such intensity viously assumed principles. So she made up a rose-colored pic­ that a nurse came from the floor station My mother was about as close to ture in her mind of how it was to be. to ask me ifI was all right. "good" as anyone I've ever known. She She would go to the hospital, put on a I wasn't. was the only person I ever knew who clean white nightgown, fold her hands What do you do when your mother believed the very best of everyone she across her breast and God would take asks you to kill her? A mother who ever met and was never disappointed. care of her. It was a peaceful picture. held life not just as something impor­ She was a devout Roman Catholic and And it was totally out of touch with tant but as something sacred. A mother numbered her true friends in dozens. reaHty. She died for six weeks-one who never missed Mass on Sundays She wore very loving and very rose­ inch at a time. My wife and I sat by her and never wavered in her belief in God, colored glasses. The world and all that side every day and watched the rose a God that had somehow abandoned was in it were good. That was the way fade from her vision. At first, she was her at the last minute. it was, as far as she was concerned. No confident that all would be well-a lit­ I'll tell you what you do. You do evil lurked, no baddies were out there tle uncomfortable maybe, but soon it what she asks you to do. to hurt her-God was on her side. would be over. Then, between sleeps On the advice of her closest friend, Her world lurched a bit when my brought on by ever-increasing doses of she had executed a living will before father died of heart disease after a year­ morphine (the only drug that would entering the hospital. A liVing will is of­ long illness. That wasn't in the plan. suppress the gagging pain of metastatic ficially recognized in the state where But it must have been "God's will," cancer spreading through her abdo­ she lived, but the hospital where she and the loneliness was something to be men), she would awake and ask in was confined was Catholic, and we borne and lived with. wonder, "Why am I still here?" or feared this might· complicate the This turned out to be not an easy "Why hasn't God taken me?" and she process. task. After my father's death, Mom fell would weep until more medication It did not. After a discussion with victim to grief; she developed cancer was given and sleep returned. her attending physician, her 'doctor within a year. She was never afraid of The morning of the 33rd day, she honored the docurpent in the only way death and had a love of life that gave awoke with me holding her hand. She he could. With his assistance, we al­ her strength to put up a pretty good squeezed my hand and with her eyes lowed my mother to die of dehydra­ fight. She suffered a year of chemother­ closed, said quite simply, "You know, tion, slowly and relatively painlessly. apy, with its violent illness and loss of Mike, God won't hate you if you kill Of course it was all unofficial. When Liberty 31 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 her blood pressure dropped to the point Dying is as much part of living as is cannot be made lightly. I would not where keeping a vein open for drip IV birth. It is something that happens to even consider such a request unless I became difficult, all efforts toward pro­ all of us. You do yourself and those you were sufficiently close to the individual viding hydration were stopped. leave behind a terrible disservice by not that I could determine his mental state. Medication was increased to keep her giving at least as much thought to dy­ Depression is a disease; severe despon­ comatose and pain-free. She was kept ing as you do to any other activity in dency can bring on suicidal desires clean and unconscious. It took her five which you will participate. Dying is the (and acts) in an individual that are more days to go into non-responsive very last thing you will ever get to do sometimes not the product of rational coma and 20 more hours to die, poi­ in life. There is nothing that we can do decision-making processes. soned to death with her own body to prevent it. All we can possibly do is IfI am convinced that the individu­ wastes. plan how, when and where the dying al is in full possession of his faculties I wouldn't submit my dog to such happens. and has carefully thought out the ac­ tender, callous, and immoral care. At what point in the living process tion and its consequences for both him­ You must understand that the ma­ does one stop? How far does the quali­ self and others, I'd try and get the jor reason for the hard, long dying was ty of life descend before the benefits of individual to figure out a way around my mother's inability ever to discuss dying exceed the costs of living? These the problem that caused the suicidal dying, let alone plan her own death. questions concern quality of life and its decision. I'd try to assist the individual That was "God's will" and out of her costs and benefits; they call for a literal­ in attempting to improve the quality of hands. Then it was too late to do any­ ly free-market evaluation of your own his or her life to the point where suicide thing about it. She sadly discovered situation. Obviously, they are answera- is no longer an attractive alternative. If that God's hands were that fails, then yes, I'd do slow in her case. She did what I could to assist by what she could. She asked I wouldn't submit my dog to such tender, furnishing information and for help in dying. Because callous, and immoral care. Because our laws what ever was necessary to our laws forbid euthanasia, allow that person to deter­ she got no help except a forbid euthanasia, she got no help except a mine how to end his life. passive "dope her up and passive IIdope her up and let her dry out" There is a still tougher let her dry out" death. death. question: the one posed by And that enrages me. my mother. Can one per­ Dying is a subject ------­ sonally take the responsi­ avoided in our society be- bility and perform the cause it is decidedly unpleasant. Dying ble only by you. No one can pick and physical action necessary to cause an­ is not a clean nightgown, folded· hands choose the moment in time when the other's death at their request if they upon the breast and a peaceful passing pain and suffering of a terminal illness should be unable to do it themselves? on some kind of cue. Dying is more or just age itself costs too damn much Generally speaking, no. I could not. likely to be weeks of pain, inconti­ to continue living. I personally plan to I cannot find it within myself to re­ nence, more pain, tubes, pumps, slow kick and scream and fight and claw for spond to another's request in such a loss of senses, more pain. Only long af­ every inch of life I can get-but it has manner. I make this statement in refer­ ter all joy has gone and what is left is got to be life-not a liVing death or a ence only to a hypothetical request, agony of the worst sort for both you vegetative existence. however, and reserve the right to re­ and those you love, in spite of all the Is it morally wrong to plan the man­ think it if the occasion should ever arise torture modern medicine can bring to ner in which you wish to die and make and it certainly depends on who is in­ bear to lengthen life just because it can the necessary preparations? I can see volved in the situation. (Is this a cop­ be done, does death come. no reason to condemn any person (my­ out? I have already told you what I did Somewhere, somehow, you get left self included) who makes a considered when my mother asked. I made my de­ out of the picture. You become a thing and intelligent decision on the subject. cision because I knew she was of sound to be kept alive regardless of expense, Each human being owns his body, hav­ mind and judgment and had thought regardless of the mental anguish of ing earned the right to life and defend­ out the action and its consequences. those who must watch the life­ ed that right throughout his life. An But most of all I did what she asked be­ stretching exercise and, most impor­ inherent part of this right is the right to cause I loved her very much.) tantly, regardless of your own wishes. stop one's life at any time one chooses. Society-all us individuals-has Ifyou go into a hospital with a terminal What about the issue posed by my come a long way in this regard. Only a illness (or serious injury) and haven't mother's request? It it wrong to assist few years ago, most States followed the first touched all the legal bases to in­ another person to plan and execute Catholic Church's edict and made sui­ sure that your wishes are followed, their own death? This is a moral deci­ cide a crime-which raises the question: those nice white-starched folks are go­ sion that each of us must make on his how do you punish someone who's ing to keep your heart beating as long own, depending on the facts and condi­ dead? In times past, failed suicides were as they can in spite of any preference tions surrounding the request for assis­ sometimes brought to trial and crimi­ you might have-for no reason better tance and his feelings toward the nally prosecuted for the attempt! No than practice and the law and our col­ person and to the request. more. In the last 25 years, all such stat­ lective moral standards. Of course, decisions of this sort utes have beeneliminated and suicide is

32 Liberty Un­ common policysense.

The Theory ofMarket Failure edited by Service's monopoly status and makes the case for Tyler Cowen. A dazzling collection ofessays that deregulation, divestiture, and privatization. 1988/ question the "public goods" rationale for gov­ 197 pp./$34.95 cloth/$19.95 paper ernment services. Contributors include Paul A. Equity and Gender by Ellen Frankel Paul. Samuelson, Ronald H. Coase, Harold Demsetz, An examination of the case for and against com­ James M. Buchanan, and Robert W. Poole, Jr. parable worth, which concludes that comparable 1988/384 pp.l$21.75 cloth worth is a backward-looking approach that will The Theory ofFree Banking by George not achieve what its proponents promise. 1988/143 A. Selgin. The fITst comprehensive study of un­ pp.l$24.95 cloth/$12.95 paper regulated banking, where banknotes are issued competitively and there is no central bank, this The Mimge ofOilProtection by Robert L. book demonstrates how competition will auto­ Bradley, Jr. A thorough rebuttal of the case for a matically keep money supply in line with de­ tariff or quota on imported oil, along with a mand. Throughout the book, the author uses free-market agenda for relieving the depressed oil examples from history to buttress his theoretical industry. 1988/254 pp.l$23.50 cloth/$11.95 paper arguments. 1988/218 pp.l$33.50 cloth \ Assessing the Reagan Years edited by Monopoly Mail by Douglas K. Adie. David Boaz. Thirty-one leading policy analysts This volume reviews the many failures of the look at the successes and failures of the Reagan U.S. Postal Service- an inability to innovate, administration in tax policy, spending, foreign soaring labor costs, huge deficits, chronic ineffi­ and military policy, trade, education, regulation, ciency, and declining service standards. The au­ civil rights, entitlements, and other areas. 1988/ thor blames most of these problems on the Postal 431 pp.l$29.95 cloth/$14.95 paper

Cato Institute, Dept. L ~ 224 Second Street, S.E. , ':t'\¥i"if1'11T""(["",.~"'-"'-f':l Washington, D.C. 20003 llNs l i· tv J.t 11 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 no longer a crime in any state, so far as I unofficially as the criminal aspects of With the graying of America­ know. the actions taken are "overlooked" for myself included (damn it!)-this ethical But assisting in a suicide still is a some time before laws are modified to question will crop up more and more criminal act. We still have a long way acknowledge what is already taking often. As the general population grows to go in our group moral struggle with place. older (and we hope smarter-but that's the real world. But helping another per­ Practice, ethics and even law are far still open to question), more and more son take their own life is fairly simple more progressed in the Netherlands. people will thoughtfully plan their own and society's ability to punish it is ex­ For many years, some physicians there future. tremely limited. Furnishing informa­ have assisted suicide for some terminal Because that future will include dy­ tion (perhaps even the drugs) to do the patients upon request, first hesitantly, ing, the planning process will inevita­ job is well-nigh impossible to prove then more openly. The laws of the bly encompass their own death. The against even a moderately intelligent Netherlands are changing to reflect the sooner we come to grips with the mo­ assistant. everyday practices of physicians. The rality and the social issues involved, Last November, California residents Netherlands has become the most pro­ the sooner we can get on with the almost had the opportunity to make gressive country in its moral thinking much more important questions of how their moral judgment known via a bal­ on the subject of suicide and and when and why rather than lot initiative for a Humane and euthanasia. whether. 0 Dignified Death Law, which would have allowed physicians to aid in the dying process of the terminally ill For further information on the subject and a detailed bibliography of referenc­ through the administration ofappropri­ es and books on the subjects of death and dying, write: ate drugs. Participation by physicians The Hemlock Society, PO Box 11830, Eugene, OR 97440-3900 (503) 345-2751 would be entirely voluntary, and the action itself would have been taken with many controls and safeguards to prevent abuse. Unfortunately, the ini­ Levite, "Guns and Guilt," continued from page 30 tiative requirements were not met in time to allow the proposition to be son's murderer, since Shields is liberal myopic trust in the state does not de­ placed on the ballot. We will see fur­ and the killer was black, so the weapon serve serious considerationa If we ther efforts to bring such a law to the used (and all the people who own cannot convince people to desist from books. them) are blamed instead. 6 trusting the state, we should at least The American Medical Association I should stress that all this has noth­ try to convince them that they have is taking a remarkably neutral stand on ing whatever to do with psychology. done nothing to feel guilty about, that the subject considering their past con­ To say that many people feel guilty the actions of others are not their fault. servative political stance. In fact, in a about eating three meals a day is not an As important as facts are in the gun letter to the New York-Times (March 19, issue; it is simply a fact. The issue is: control debate, making people 1988) the AMA refers to a recent article should we feel remorse about eating immune from guilt is of infinitely in the New England Journal of three meals a day? The answer, of greatel' value. 0 Medicine by a physician who actively course, is no, but more importantly, assisted an elderly patient to die. (The this is quite obviously neither a medical Notes physician remained anonymous for ob­ nor a psycholOgical issue, but rather a 1. Don B. Kates, Jr., "Handgun Banning in Light vious reasons.) The AMA now openly moral and philosophical one. The guilt­ of the Prohibition Experience," in Don B. Kates, acknowledges that a growing number ridden people I have described have no ed., Firearms and Violence: Issues ofPublic Policy of physicians take an ethical position psychological problem. They have a (San Francisco: Pacific Institute for Public supporting self determination and be­ Policy Research, 1984), pp. 143-146, and p. 146 moral problem. For all their learning, H. lieve that suicide is a viable solution for they are unable to comprehend just 2. See CharlesMurray, Losing Ground (New York: some people in certain circumstances. who is and is not responsible for what. Basic Books, Inc., 1984), especially chapters 4 The ethics committee of the AMA andS. has further determined that withdraw­ Will the State Keep Its Word? 3. Lucy Braun, IIGod and Woman at Yale," Reason 17 (April 1986), p. 36. al of life support including food and Many people continue to believe 4. See Kates, up. cit., and Rashi Fein, Alcohol in nutrition is an ethical act for a physi­ that the government can be trusted not AmeriCll: The Price We Pay (Newport Beach, Cal.: cian under certain circumstances (Le., to confiscate long guns later if it confis­ The Care Institute, 1984), p. 14. when a patient is terminally ill and has cates handguns now. But this is the 5. See David T. Hardy, IIGun Control: Arm no real chance for survival). This ethi­ Yourself with Evidence," Reason 14 (November same government that promised that 1982), pp. 38-41. See also Kates, op. cit., and cal verdict has been stretched to· in­ the 1964 Civil Rights Act would not re­ Gary Kleck, 'The Relationship Between Gun clude removal of hydration.as well in quire racial quotas, 7 the same govern­ Ownership Levels and Rates of Violence in the many cases, a much faster death-but ment that routinely assured us that United States," in Kates, ed., op.cit. still inexcusably slow once the decision Social Security was an inviolate trust 6. William R Tonso, IIGun Control: White Man's Law," Reason 17

34 Liberty Rebuttal

An Environmentalist Contra Rothbard by Daniel M. Karlan

Murray Rothbard's Reflection in the January issue-"Greenhouse defects"- has caused nearly as much a stir as John Hospers' September essay, "Ecology and Liberty." In lieu of pages and pages of letters-to-the-editors, we instead offer this one response ...

When I read Dr. Rothbard's piece on environmentalism in the last issue of Liberty, I knew it had to be answered. I started by highlighting with a yellow marker anything that suggested misinformation, but gave that up when almost the whole article was yellow. I'm fully prepared to answer his arguments point for point, but I suspect-from the tone of his arti- : cle-that Rothbard is not open to ra- profitable drugs and open new technol- We have encouraged this wanton tional argument. I'll try, anyway, for the ogies. A new Green Revolution is in the loss with no concern, even for the possi­ rest of you. works, based substantially on introduc- bility that allowing this is contrary to hu- "Of all varieties of statists, I find the ing into commercial crops traits discov- manity's welfare. In fact, for most of this environmentalists the most annoying." ered in older (about-to-become-extinct) destruction of our heritage there was no I am an environmentalist. I am not a cousins. If we had permitted those cou- consideration ofthe simple view that we statist. I resent being classed as one. I sins to become extinct, we would have might be doing something wrong. Such consider myself an environmentalist be- lost something valuable, without even reckless disregard for our origins and cause I am pro-human. Human beings knOWing what it was. heritage might-just might-be anti­ do not live in a vacuum, but in a context That is one reason to oppose extinc- human. But Rothbard will have none of that has been developing for a million tion, a reason that I think even that, and is ready to throwaway the en­ times as long as humans have, and Rothbard might be able to understand tire past life ofthis planet. That might not which in fact gave birth to humanity. and accept. I offer it only to those who be bad-but Rothbard cavalierly refuses Nor do I believe that "Animals that find nothing wrong with Rothbard's ar- to consider the possibility that it might are cute and cuddly have 'rights' that tide. For the more open-minded among not be good, or even that people who man must respect." Animal rights are Liberty's readers, I have another argu- consider that possibility are libertarians. not universally promoted in the envi- ment, one that I find more compelling. We're not talking about the snail ronmental movement; some environ- Sure, species have become extinct darter-we're not even talking about mentalists even regard the notion of for all of life's existence-some 3 1/2 bil- the black rhinocerous and the red wolf. animal rights as dangerous. lion years. But the rate of such extinc- We're talking about the simple unity of "Why must we worry about 'endan- tion has taken an alarming quantum life. The sensible person, without being gered species'? Species have become ex- leap in just the past century. Prior to a pack-rat, does not throwaway every­ tinct since the world began-before 1900, extinctions occurred once every thing for which he has no immedi

What if Everything We KnoW" About Safety Is Wrong? by John Semmens and Dianne Kresich

Motor vehicle safety is a sacred cow of public policy. For many, any act that purports to enhance or promote safety is deemed warranted. The common presumption is that the attainment of safety is a mere matter of engineering technology or appropriate regulation. After all, improved safety is something that everyone sup- ports, and since everyone really wants it, when individuals appear balky or in­ that society's resources are limited. choice is not an undertaking readily ac­ different to safety measures touted by Funds spent to save a life in one sphere complished in America. Most experts, then safety should be imposed of activity are funds unavailable to save Americans harbor the notion that they on them for their own good. lives in other spheres. The presumption ought to be free to make their own Little thought seems to go into the that "no price is too high" also ignores choices, and require good reasons for question of whether resorting to coer­ the question of whose life is to be suppressing their freedom if they are to cion can really achieve a safer saved. More specifically, should some acquiesce to that suppression. Saving environment. Not surprisingly, the con­ lives be saved at the cost of the lives of lives, it is said, is such a "good reason" cept of safety is rarely even defined. others? It is quite possible to agree that for compulsory safety regulations. The Much of the literature routinely equates "all men are created equal," yet have question remains: do these restrictions safety with accident statistics, assuming reservations about, say, a safety pro­ actually save lives? If they do not, then that a decline in a targeted accident rate gram which provided that for every there is no good reason for the restric­ represents a safety improvement. two vehicle drivers saved one addition­ tions on personal freedom. However, simplistic reliance upon this al pedestrian was killed. Though the general public might sort of a statistical method paves the Government mandates that require never guess it, there is a lot of ambigui­ way for misleading conclusions. Might installation of certain kinds of safety ty surrounding the alleged achieve­ the accident rates have declined any­ equipment or compel specific behaviors ments of safety rules. Not everything way? Could some factor other than the for vehicle drivers entail a loss of free­ done in the name of safety clearly en­ assumed safety improvement have dom. Many cavalierly brush this loss hances safety. A large part of the reason caused the change in accident statistics? aside, confident that it only involves the is that the attempt to implement safety Have accidents been reduced or merely loss of unwarranted opportunities for is generally done via the mechanism of shifted to other locations, times, activi­ endangerment. People too foolish to see government. Government, after all, is ties or persons? These questions are not the benefits of safety regulations ought the institution that operates a money­ often asked, and the underlying as­ to have these benefits thrust on them by losing railroad, subsidizes hopelessly sumptions rarely called to question. benevolent force, it is said. Advocates profitless municipal transit, regularly If we go beyond the difficulty of de­ of such "benevolence" find it insuffi­ gets swindled by highway contractor fining and measuring safety, there is cient, for instance, that seat belts are bid rigging, and cannot enact a timely still the question of whether it is worth available for purchase; the belts must be transportation finance package without the cost. Those prone to cliche may be required equipment and their use com­ loading it with billions of dollars in convinced that "no price is too high to pelled under threat of punishment. pork barrel spending. Government reg­ pay for saving a life," ignoring the fact But removing a person's freedom of ulations have added billions of dollars Liberty 37 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 per year to air passenger travel and sur­ more than compensate. Mandated safety from improvements to vehicles or road­ face freight transport. One would hardly improvements could also explain why ways will result in clear safety gains. expect this history of under­ fatality rates decline. But this possible 2) The economic model theorizes achievement to lend confidence to a pro­ explanation is countered by data from that the intended safety improvement is gram of government mandated safety the relatively unmotorized Third World, only one possible outcome, that drivers regulation, and yet few draw this where fatality rates are following a pat­ may opt for intensified vehicle perfor- inference. tern very similar to those in the relatively unmotorized Ambiguous Implications United States during the u.s. Fatalities On Logarithmic Scale The long-term decline in vehicle fa­ early part of this century, talities per mile of travel seems to verify despite the fact that the ve- that safety meansures have been suc­ hicles in the Third World 1.3 cessful, and has encouraged advocates today are equipped with 1.2 of those measures. (See graphs on this modern safety features and 1.1 page.) the vehicles in the U.S. 1.0 !· Legislators and safety regulation ad­ early in this century were ~ .9 • vocates are quick to credit their action mostly Model T Fords lack­ .8 ~ when the years following some new law ing even such rudimentary .7 I! or rule reveal lower fatality rates. Closer ~. safety equipment as turn .6 • examination of the trend lines, however, 2 signals or brake lights. .5 ~ yields an odd fact: the fatality rate has The inexorable down­ · 4 .4 been in a more or less steady rate of de­ ward trend in fatality rates cline of 3.1 % per year for 60 years. There combined with the cross­ 1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 is an absence of dramatic thresholds of cultural comparison sug­ Y,ar new achievements following enactment gests that a simple model Sources: of new safety measures, like the adop­ for how man and machine StatistiCAl. Abstract ofthe United Stfltes tion of seat belts or speed limits. The interact to produce accident HistoriCAl. Stfltistics ofthe United States long-term trend suggests that fatality statistics is inadequate. rates may have declined regardless of Though experts may profess to believe mance as an alternative. any specific legislation or regulation. that the driver is the single most signifi­ 3) The risk homeostasis model theor­ This long-term decline in traffic fatal­ cant cause of accidents, projections of izes that people have a set level of ac­ ities can be attributed to Smeed's Law. the life-saving impact of new safety ceptable risk, that if this preference is Generally speaking, this law hypothesiz- equipment or regulations routinely unchanged, intended safety improve­ overestimate the potential ments will be nullified and risk will be benefits. It seems clear that redistributed rather than reduced. 3 u.s. Fatalities Per 100 Million Miles drivers are modifying their Examination of evidence relating to use of vehicles on the road the effects of various safety­ in response to the safety enhancement attempts seems seriously programs in unexpected to undermine the engineering model. 18 ways. That this model still persists is more a 16 Behavior modification testament to the fact that more transpor­ 14 can produce some interest­ tation professionals are engineers than 12 ing and anomalous results economists, statisticians, or psycholo­ ..· 10 from legislated safety pro­ gists. It is the engineering model that 3 8 grams. Some researchers readily serves up the installation of traf­ ~· 6 have developed theories of fic signals, the marking of crosswalks 4 "risk compensation" and and improved driver training as obvi­ 2 "risk homeostasis" in order ous ways to reduce accidents. Yet, stud­ to explain the apparent ne­ ies have shown that there is reason to 1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 gation of the intent of safe- challenge the effectiveness of each of Y,ar ty regulations. Other these intended safety improvements. Sources: StatistiCAl. Ahstrlld ofthe United Stfltes researchers vigorously When one considers the possible HistoriCAl Stfltistics ofthe United Stfltes deny that these behavioral changes in human behavior in response changes can be as signifi­ to signalization of traffic intersections, it cant as proponents claim. is perhaps less mysterious that the fre­ es that vehicle fatality rates will decline The range of opinion varies, but can quency of accidents is unchanged by the as the number of vehicles per capita generally be classified into three broad improvement. 4 A study of intersections rises. 1 Even though the increase in num­ theories: in Milwaukee that had been signalized bers of vehicles implies a mathematical­ 1) The engineering model theorizes revealed 520 accidents in the three years ly increased probability of collision, the that behavioral adjustment will be mini­ before lights were installed compared to gains in experience and driving skill mal and most of the anticipated gains 522 in the three years after installation.

38 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989

Of the pre-installation accidents, 134 in­ of those schools. 10 Forcing students into crease, thus increasing injuries and fatal­ volved injuries. Of the post-installation mandatory driver education programs ities for pedestrians, bicyclists and accidents, 154 involved injuries. Right may encourage driving by those who motorcyclists. angle impacts were down 34%, but rear­ would otherwise delay this experience Apologists for mandatory safety end, head-on and vehicle-bicycle colli­ and may contribute to overconfidence rules feel compelled to defend their the­ sions were up by 37 to 41 %.5 The types on the part of some other students. ories at this point. Some argue that peo­ of accidents were altered, but the fre­ Clearly, even mandatory driver educa­ ple do not willingly increase their risk­ quency and severity were not. Still, tion-the most sacrosanct of safety pro­ taking as a result of improved crash­ neighborhood committees of citizens are grams-is not free of disconcerting worthiness of vehicles. To bolster this prone to demand that signals be in­ statistical implications. Achieving safe line of reasoning, the case of the so­ stalled in order to make intersections in roads may be more difficult than we called invisible safety improvements is their areas safer. ushered in: It is argued Obtaining painted that often the driver crosswalks is another Everyone "knows" that bad road conditions are does not know that oft-launched neighbor­ safey enhancements hood safety campaign, more hazardous than good road conditions. How, have been made; inter­ as are laws prohibiting then, does one explain the lower fatality rate per mile nal vehicle modifica­ mid-block crossing of travel in winter versus summer? How does one ex­ tions may be invisible (jaywalking), and im­ to the driver. Shock posing fines for viola­ plain the lower injury rate for accidents on icy versus absorbing guardrails tions. One might think dry pavement? and breakaway light that painted cross­ poles do not present a walks are clearly safer readily identifiable dif­ than unmarked locations for crossing would like to imagine. ference in appearance to the average streets. This is not the case. Statistics in­ The counter-intuitive statistics of ac­ driver in a moving vehicle. Therefore, dicate that six times as many accidents cident reports should be enough to pro­ some observers conclude that safety fea­ occur in marked crosswalks. When ad­ duce caution in claiming benefits of tures such as these cannot affect driver justed for frequency of use, the accident various safety programs. Alas, most of behavior. 12 rate is twice as high in the marked cross­ the safety claims made to the public The "undetectable" safety improve­ ing. 6 Perhaps the "common sense" be­ show little of this needed caution. For ment may sound plausible on superfi­ lief that painted crosswalks are safer example, everyone "knows" that bad cial examination, but drivers do not base may by itself account for the higher pe­ road conditions (i.e: snow and ice) are their actions only on what they know. destrian accident rate at such places be­ more hazardous than good road condi­ Drivers may assume and presume as cause they increase the pedestrians' tions. How, then, does one explain the well as know or not know the particular sense of security more than is warrant­ lower fatality rate per mile of travel in features of the roadway. Many an acci­ ed, resulting in a greater incidence of winter versus summer? How does one dent occurs because an assumption heedless meandering into the path of ve­ explain the lower injury rate for acci­ made by the driver has proven incor­ hicles that may be unwilling or unable dents on icy vs dry pavement? 11 These rect. Safety improvements are frequent­ to stop. statistics would appear to support a ly advertised by either vehicle Traffic signals and crosswalks are "risk compensation" theory of driver be­ manufacturers or proud public highway rather passive means of influencing havior in which the greater care exer­ officials anxious to make it known that roadway user behavior. Surely, higher cised under perceived hazardous the roads are safer because of better levels of driver skills should produce conditions overwhelms the effects of the guardrails or light poles. Many drivers fewer accidents. Unfortunately, this bad road surface. Conversely, the per­ may assume that the safety improve­ premise, too, is shaky. Professional race­ ceived greater traction in good summer ments are more widespread or more ef­ car drivers have higher accident rates in weather may lead to a more than pro­ fective than they really are. highway driving than the lesser skilled portionate decline in driver caution. The Even those apologists for mandatory average drivers. 7 Drivers with the best very possibility that drivers modify safety programs who concede that sig­ vision, fastest reflexes and lowest likeli­ their behavior results in uncertainty nificant behavior modification takes hood of falling asleep (the young) have about the benefits of any safety place often take refuge in the apparent a 300% higher accident rate than older measure. "net gain" achieved by the rules. Okay, drivers. 8 Further, subjecting young driv­ Changes in driver behavior affect the so making cars safer induces drivers to ers to mandatory driver education class­ risk to others using the highway system. assume more risk, and this may result in es may not improve their accident At the same time safety legislators or rises in fatalities for certain other users record. Although insurance companies regulators are patting themselves on of the roadways. Even taking these in­ assert that driver education graduates their backs for making the vehicle and creased fatalities into account, they have fewer and less costly accidents, 9 a its driver more crashworthy, there is the argue, there is still considerable net gain study in Connecticut showed that the very real possibility that unsuspecting in lives saved. This argument is promi­ elimination of mandatory driver educa­ victims are being created. If survival nent in the debate over mandatory seat tion classes in several high schools led odds are enhanced for drivers, their belt use laws. to lower accident rates for the students willingness to risk crashes is apt to in- In a study of the effects of seat belt

Liberty 39 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 legislation in Great Britain, support for the ten years before the enactment of the forcement received no credit from the the risk compensation hypothesis was seat belt law than in the decade before. 18 advocates of seat belt laws. 19 found. Post-legislation data showed that The reversal of this trend for fewer pe­ The devotion to the dogma that com­ fatality rates for drivers and front seat destrian fatalities following enactment pulsion works persists even in the ab­ passengers were down by 18% and 25% of mandatory seat belt usage laws, of sence of compliance with the mandated respectively. Meanwhile, fatality rates course, does not conclusively prove that behavior. The classic demonstration of for back-seat passengers were up by the laws caused the increase in fatalities. this phenomenon was seen in the phrase 27%, pedestrians by 8%, and cyclists by But the flat denial of the possible cause­ "55 saves lives." The battle over the 55 13%. 13 If one considers only those fatali­ and-effect relationship is certainly not mph speed limit is heavily flavored with ties among non-occupants caused by justified. Many of the proponents of this emotional appeal. Unquestionably, cars (the only vehicles affected by the compulsory safety take a very dogmatic crashes occurring at speeds of 55 mph mandatory seat belt law), the increase in stance regarding such disconcerting are generally less severe than crashes at fatality rates were 14% and 40%, respec­ data. The refusal to consider the possi- higher speeds. The odds of dying in a 65 tively, for pedestrians and cy- mph crash are greater than in a 55 clists. 14 All of these increases mph crash. The claim that 55 and decreases added up to an es­ Motor Vehicle Fatality Rate saves lives would seem fairly timated net gain of 200 lives solid-until, that is, one discovers saved. that posting roads at 55 mph may Even if there is a net gain in .j 30 have little effect on actual driving lives saved (a matter by no' speeds. Studies by state highway means proven), is it acceptable to· J agencies have indicated that over ~ shift the carnage from drivers 25 70% of the vehicles traveling on who have the option of buckling­ ~ the Interstate Highway System &. 20 up in the absence of compulsion ! exceed the 55 mph limit. 20 In tes­ and who control the havoc­ timony for the House committee wreaking vehicle, to non­ 15 hearings on the 55 mph limit, the

occupants attempting to use the 19251935194519551965 1975 1985 Director of the Arizona same roadways? While there is Department of Transportation Year some controversy over the mean- Sources: pointed out that in 1973, when Statistical Abstract ofthe United States ing of the increased fatalities Historical Statistics ofthe United States rural Interstate routes were post­ among pedestrians, cyclists and ed at 70 to 75 mph, the observed back-seat passengers, these re- normal speed was 68 mph. In sults were predicted by the British bility that mandatory measures actually 1986, when these same routes were post­ Department of Transport. Prior to the increase fatalities-even when such a ed at 55 mph, the observed normal enactment of the compulsory seat belt forecast is made prior to the enactment speed was 66 mph. 21 How can the mere use law, a DOT report forecast a poten­ of the law and seems to be borne out by act of posting 55 mph signs be seriously tially "alarming" rise in pedestrian the statistics-suggests that faith rather credited with saving lives, if the traffic is deaths if the law were passed. 15 The than reason fuels much of the debate moving as if the signs weren't there? If study's examination of accident rates in over mandatory safety rules. posting signs that are ignored saves countries with mandatory use laws Of course, statistics on accidents give lives, then perhaps a new theory ex­ found that in every case road accidents rise to differing interpretations. The real plaining the mechanism is needed. increased. All of the increases were world in which the effects of safety small and not statistically significant. measures must be observed is not a con­ Accident Homeostasis However, the odds against unanimity of trolled experiment. Confounding effects When one examines the long term direction of change on a random basis in abound. Multiple factors affect the be­ trends in accidental deaths, one cannot the eight countries surveyed is 256 to 1. haviors of roadway users. Sadly, these fail to be impressed by the lack of The study concluded that compulsory confounding influences are often ig­ progress in reducing the fatality rates on seat belt use could not be shown to have nored by those with an abiding faith in a per capita basis. The fatality rate per led to a detectable reduction of roadway the efficacy of compulsion. Advocates of mile of travel has beat a steady retreat, fatalities. 16 Unfortunately, though, this mandatory seat belt use in Britain were averaging a decline of about 3% per report was not released for four years-­ quick to claim credit for the net gain in year. But the fatality rate per capita two years after the mandatory belt use lives saved in the year after the law shows no such salutary trend. The per law went into effect. went into effect. Further analysis of the capita death rate from motor vehicle ac­ Advocates of mandatory safety rules statistics showed an amazing disparity cidents has followed an erratic path over have called the rise in pedestrian deaths between a 23% decline in fatality rates the last 60 years (see graph above). The following enactment of seat belt laws during the prime drinking hours and a 1985 death rate of 19.1 per 100,000 per­ "mysterious," 17 but the suppression of 3% decline in death rates for other sons is similar to the 1925 death rate. 22 the DOT study appears even more times. The simultaneous initiation of an The fluctuations in the motor vehicle fa­ mysterious. The prior trend in pedestri­ intensified enforcement of laws against tality rate tend to undermine any confi­ an traffic deaths had been downward, drunk driving may have accounted for dence in the aggregate efficacy of with 1000 fewer pedestrian fatalities in this disparity, yet this intensified en- imposed safety measures. Death rates 40 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 from all sources of accidents follow a compelling the wearing of seat belts, for conveyed in the popular media. similar trendless pattern. 23 example, is time and money unavailable One factor making deregulated truck Mandatory vehicle safety rules may for the suppression of criminal activity. transport safer is the decrease in empty not be affecting the rate at which people Since we have focused on fatality rates, backhaul miles. Operating limitations succumb to accidental demise, but only perhaps it would be interesting to inves­ under the stricter regulations prevailing the specific means. Saving people from tigate the trend in murders over recent prior to 1980 resulted in more mileage death in a particular circumstance ap­ years. The figures are not trendless. for empty trucks. Accident reports show parently is being offset by increased in­ Since 1960, deaths by homicid~ hav~ that empty trucks crash more often than stances of risk-taking. This raises the more than doubled from 2.5/100,000 loaded trucks. 31 Thus, the higher load very pertinent question of whether all persons to 6.3 in 1982. 28 Can people factors permitted under loosened con­ the effort and expense is worthwhile. genuinely concerned about the safety of trols unintentionally contributes to re­ The naive cliche that "if even one life is other human beings seriously urge that duced hazard. saved, the effort is worthwhile," ignores police shift efforts from crime control to Unintended .reduction of hazards the real issue of cost. We don't have to issuing citations for failure to wear seat also resulted from the attempt to con- get into an unresolva- serve fuel by down­ ble debate over the sizing vehicles. Nat value of a human life The unintended safety consequences of non-safety only do smaller cars in order to deal with programs may be of greater impact than planned safe­ burn less gasoline, the issue of cost. they are also 28% less Resources are limited. ty efforts. Trucking deregulation, for example, has ac­ likely to crash into Funds expended on tually resulted in increased road safety. other vehicles or ob­ one program to save jects. 32 Drivers of lives are not simultane- smaller cars have been ously available for another program. belts? 29 observed to exercise more caution in the The cost of safety programs can be While the absence of a trend in acci­ way they operate their vehicles, by re­ substantial. During 1985, over $100 mil­ dent fatality rates in the face of a multi­ ducing their speed and leaving more lion in federal highway fund money was tude of government safety mandates headway between vehicles. These be­ spent on safety improvements. 24 may be baffling, the surge in homicides haviors not only enhance safety for the Vehicle manufacturers incur about $20 is alarming. In many parts of the coun­ small vehicle driver, but for other road billion per year in order to comply with try, people dare not wander outdoors users as well. assorted government regulations. 25 during the hours of darkness. Providing These costs, of course, must be covered for law and order is a prime reason for Individual Responsibility by revenues from vehicle sales. The in­ the existence of government. Can we ne­ Back in 1975, Professor Sam creased cost of new vehicles with these glect this responsibility in order to pur­ Pelztman shocked the safety establish­ enhanced safety features deter purchase sue a futile effort to save people from ment by arguing that many widely­ by many would-be buyers unable or un­ their own folly of not wearing seat belts? touted safety regulations were useless, willing to pay marked-up prices-thus The unintended safety consequences or worse, actually counterproductive. 33 keeping older, presumably less safe, ve­ of non-safety programs may be of great­ Safety rules are not imposed upon inani­ hicles on the road longer. er impact than planned safety efforts. mate objects. Human beings operate The insurance industry is a firm sup­ Trucking deregulation, for example, has motor vehicles. They respond in ways porter of most mandatory safety rules actually resulted in increased road safe­ that act to offset the gains in safety antic­ on the theory that safety improvements ty. Critics of the loosening of operating, ipated by rulemakers. Peltzman saw in­ help reduce damage claims and, there­ entry, and price controls achieved by the tended safety benefits being consumed fore, insurance premiums. However, the Motor Carrier Act insurance industry's own newsletter re­ of 1980 assert that ports that the additional costs of re­ increased acci­ quired safety equipment on vehicles is dents have been a three times as large as the anticipated result of this par­ savings in insurance premiums. 26 tial deregulation, Paying three dollars in order to save one and serve up lurid dollar in damages does not seem like anecdotal ac­ cost-effective utilization of limited re­ counts to bolster sources. Nevertheless, ineffectual expen­ this claim. But the diture of scarce resources is more the statistics tell a dif­ rule than the exception in government ferent story. safety programs. A General Accounting Fatalities and acci­ Office study of the effectiveness of $1.3 dents have actual­ billion in federal safety grants found ly declined since "little demonstrated effect in reducing 1980. 30 This is ex- the traffic crash toll." 27 actly the opposite "I forgot to fasten my seat belt when I drove to work this morning, The time and money invested in of the impression so I'd like to tum myself in."

Liberty 41 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 as performance gains under· what he Notes termed increased driving intensity. 34 Whether drivers are more intense, or 1. John Adams, Risk and Freedom (Cardiff, Great Pedestrians," New Scientist (April 25, 1985), p. 8. whether travel becomes more frequent, Britain: Transport Publishing Projects, 1985), 19. Hamer, "Britain to Decide," op cit. pp.20,27. 20. James Mancuso, "Finding the Truth About or shifts in mode, or whether the reduc­ 2. John Adams, "Smeed's Law: Some Further Highway Safety," Heartland Perspective (August tion of one element of risk (in this case, Thoughts," Traffic Engineering and Control 8,1986). in transportation) is mirrored by an in­ (February 1987). 21. Charles Miller, Director, Arizona Department crease elsewhere, statistics do indicate a 3. For discussion of these three theories see of Transportation, "Comments to the House 55 relative lack of positive impact from Leonard Evans, "Human Behavior Feedback Public Works Committee on the mph Issue." and Traffic Safety," Human Factors (October (1987). decades of safety regulation. 1985), pp. 555 - 576. 22. National Safety Council, Chicago, Accident Although Peltzman's work has been 4. Ibid. Facts. widely criticized for failing to prove that 5. Michael Short, et aI, "Effects of Traffic Signal 23. U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, Vital safety regulations don't work, one has Installation on Accidents," Accident Analysis Statistics of the United States. to wonder: on whom does burden of and Prevention (Vol. 14, No.2, 1982), pp. 135­ 24. Highway Statistics (U.S. DOT, FHWA, 1985), p. 145. 56. proof fall? Should the burden of proof 6. B.F. Herms, "Pedestrian Crosswalk Study: 25. Jerry Flint, "Back to the Drawing Board," lie with the advocates of expending bil­ Accidents in Painted and Unpainted Regulation (September/October 1986), pp. 50­ lions of dollars to force highway users to Crosswalks," Highway Research Record 406, pp. 51. consume intended safety benefits? Or 1-13. 26. "NHTSA Estimates Cost of Auto Safety should it be thrust upon those who chal­ 7. Evans, "Human Behavior Feedback," op cit. Regulations," Status Report (April 27, 1982), pp. 8. Ibid. 2-3. lenge the use of coercion for purposes of 9. William Cushman, "Driver Education," Traffic 27. "GAO Questions Effectiveness of Safety undemonstrated benefit? (Incidentally, Safety (May/June 1986), pp. 6 - 7 and 25 - 27. Grants," Status Report

Past: Born in Warsaw, Poland, 1941, left in 1967 when his original scientific research was supressed for political reasons (later published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry). M.D., School of Medicine, Wroclaw. PhD., U.C., San Franciso & Berkeley. Attended Columbia University Libertarian Conference, 1971. Joined the Libertarian Party, 1975. Texas LP Finance Chair, 1980-1982. Elected to Libertarian National Committee, 1981. National LP Finance Chair, 1982-85. Developed and successfully implemented national LP telephone fundraising, the monthly Liberty Pledge program, and the Torch Club program. Finance Chair, Ron Paul Libertarian for President, 1988. Present: Married with two children. Practicing cardiologist. Member, Denton Cooley Cardiology Society. Membership Chair of national LP, 1987-present. Developed "Instant Membership" program, which has brought in over 2,000 new members. Publisher, American Libertarian newspaper. Future: 'To carry out its mission, the Libertarian Party needs competent, professional management, entrepreneurial leadership, and more financial resources to fund important projects." 'The Libertarian National Committee is just too big to manage effectively. We don't need a mini-legislature. We need a capable board of directors with business and management experience to prepare the LP for the 1990's and beyond." "The national LP should perform as a service organization. It should provide professional ballot access and political development services to state and local parties. Cut the overhead and provide more benefits to members, like a monthly party newspaper." liThe three central goals if I am elected as national LP chair are 1) Managing for Growth - finding, hiring and motivating the best people we can find to end stagnation, provide our- organization with new prospects and members, and raise the necessary money to pay for new programs; 2) the Permanent Campaign - where full-time ballot access and political development professionals carry forward the work usually done only during major election years. This also means professional advertising (print, TV and radio), lobbying, public speaking engagements by LP representatives, and active public relations efforts; and 3) the LP 2000 Program - the LP in the year 2000 will be led and run by those we recruit and train in the next few years. This means starting an active student organization program, funding workshops and student conferences, and producing new literature and recruiting campaigns to find new members and develop future leadership in every state party." 'The Libertarian Party already has wonderfully generous and hardworking supporters, the best ideas in politics, and an American public increasingly fed up with the two-party choices. All we need now is solid, capable leadership for our party. I am assembling a team which will provide that leadership, and Isincerely hope you will join me in this very important work." - Matt Monroe

Join the Monroe I LP Chair team!

Monroe I Send to: Monroe/LP Chair, Dr. Matthew T. Monroe, 1213 Hermann Dr., #655, Houston, TX 77004 Yes, I want to help! 0 I want to join the Monroe/LP Chair Committee. Chair o I plan on being a delegate to the Philadelphia LP convention. DI want to help; enclosed is my check for $ (payable to Monroe for Chair). Leadership, o I want more information about the Party and membership. for a Name: _ Address: _ Change City/State/Zip: _ Telephone: (Day) _ (Evening) _ Travel

You Can Go

HOllle Again, But • • • by Tibor R. Machan

Cleanliness, efficient driving, and pretty buildings versus racism, sexism and spinelessness before government.

I have a fantasy. I am watching a Woody Allen movie about a bunch of 14th century city planners in Venice, figuring out how they will play practical jokes on 20th century tourists. They make it impossible to park anywhere near their wonderful works; they design alleys so narrow that people can pass through only at a snail's pace; they guarantee that no one in their cities can speak a word of for the first time. These remnants are But what is it to live in Europe, to any language aside from an obscure an impressive lot, I grant you, and if go through life there-not to see it Italian dialect. you don't watch out you may come from a tour bus for· two or three It's just a fantasy. What I was much home saying things like, "We in this weeks, as a cursory observer of literal­ more conscious of as I traveled country just don't appreciate culture, ly outstanding items-but actually to throughout Europe during the last few art, music, architecture, beauty, etc. live there? years-while teaching at Franklin enough." I am convinced that Europe is in College in Lugano, Switzerland-is There is an outrageous cultural certain respects far more morally de­ the reality that too much of what is nonsense that is part of virtually every generate than America, contrary to re­ glorious and remarkable about Europe inch of European society, a thorough­ ceived intellectual opinion. The sits atop the blood and sweat and even going ethnic prejudice that inflicts vir­ impression given us by such intellec­ bodies of the millions of poor blokes tually everyone on the European tuals as the American novelist­ who were oppressed so that it could continent. Furthermore, Europeans be­ misanthrope Gore Vidal is that all be built. Tourists gape at the treas­ lieve there is more culture in some America is a corrupt culture while ures, and take video-pictures and tiny French, German or Austrian town Europe is a noble one. These literati snapshots. But the substance of the ex­ than in entire states of the U.s.A. continuously yap about how back­ perience that made all of it happen is There is no denying that Europe of­ ward the U.S. is in this or that respect· mostly hidden from them. As one fers up a long list of impressive accom­ bearing on its social institution-can't tours Europe one should bear in mind plishments of the Western mind and you just hear the expression, "We, in the fate of .the masons, bricklayers, labors-from the canals in Amsterdam this country, never ," and "We, in and others who built those marvelous to the pitch dark tunnels in Norway, this country, always "-as if they palaces and cathedrals. Their fate is from the 10 mile long tunnel in had canvassed all the other places on nothing Europeans can be very glad Switzerland to the architecture and the face of the earth and found them about, despite the fact that mixed in other marvels of Florence, Venice, all morally and politically advanced with the misery are two millennia of Siena, Barcelona and, of course, beyond anything we could even artistic and scientific achievement. London, Paris, Rome. But for me, this dream of. But the truth is that amid A European tour is of special sig­ is not what I think of when I think of the expensive ornamentation of nificance for someone like me who Europe. If I want to rekindle my vi­ European culture lives a deservedly was born in Europe but saw profit in sions of these cultural offerings, I can dispirited population still exhibiting leaving for America. Europe simply look at my books from Milan and habits of mind and action they ought doesn't impress me as much as it Vienna or Ghent. When I think of to have progressed beyond centuries would a tourist coming to terms with Europe's culture, I rely on my own ago. the remnants of Western culture there experience. Consider the matter of racial or 44 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 f' \ ethnic prejudice.You simply cannot es­ pluralism to be regarded as just so were subje~ec;t to the stern stares of the cape it in Europe. Virtually every much human diversity. "How dare authorities and did as they were told. European hates some group just for be­ you judge these societies?" they ask. I In most of Europe the authorities are ing that group, never mind that he or wonder, how is it that the segregation still the sovereign, the citizen is still a she knows perhaps just one of these of women in Western Europe and the subject. The bureaucracies are so used people personally. The northern subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia to compliance from their "subjects," Austrians I met were simply contemp­ is a mere cultural diversity, when the that they were entirely unprepared for tuous of the lower Austrians. Most segregation of Blacks in South Africa any resistence. In contrast, here in the Italian Swiss hate the German Swiss, or the persecution of Jews or profiteers u. S. the bureaucracies are prepared while the Danes generally despise the in the Soviet Union is morally unac­ for protests; the distinctive American Swedes-the story is the same ceptable. Perhaps the South African or mentality tends toward rebellion! everywhere. Russian ruling classes are just a bit too There are exceptions to this statist Or consider the role of women in diverse! culture, of course. I had the opportuni­ European society. One can go from But this is just the beginning. Worse ty to lecture to two university law England to Italy, from Spain to still was the persistent deference to school classes in Belgium, and both at Hungary, and from Germany through public authority one finds everywhere Ghent and Brussels the interest in the all the lands of Scandinavia, but one in Europe, not to mention the ineffi- individualist viewpoint-where I sub- will never find wom- stitute a kind of en being accorded Aristotelian or classi­ the status they usual­ Amid the expensive ornamentation of European cal egoism derived ly have in the United from Rand for the States. Just attend a culture lives a deservedly dispirited population exhib­ more prevalent small dinner party iting habits of mind and action they ought to have Hobbesian egoism­ in, say, Austria, and progressed beyond centuries ago. was pronounced. The see what happens. questions were ea­ The guests separate ger-all in English into groups of men and fluent!-and in- and women and talk of matters pre­ ciencies of European bureaucracies or sightful. Professors to whom I tried to sumed to be of interest only to mem­ the medieval political traditions that explain the Lockean-natural rights, bers of their o,.vn sex. At a dinner party still plague the inhabitants of that con­ Aristotelian-Randian individualism in Lugano, this segregation shocked tinent, despite their supposed emanci­ were attentive and respectful, quite un­ me. The host's wife, an attorney who pation to democratic polities. like the majority of the members of the works in Milan, was confined to the As an American, I was simply not academic political philosophers and le­ company of the other women, talking accustomed to being deferential to bu­ gal theorists in the United States. In about matters of the home, while her reaucrats, and I had several run-ins Austria and in Italy, too, surprising in­ husband joined the men to discuss with them. I shipped my small person­ terest was shown in these kinds of worldly matters. Any effort to mix the al computer to Switzerland. When it thoughts. But, this should not be that two groups was met with disdain. arrived customs held it up, demanding surprising-the ideas are sound and Some see the way European men I pay 72 Swiss Francs duty, 'rVhich many of them came from Europe in the treat women as a kind of quaint ro­ would be refunded when I took it out first place. manticism. Never mind that it often of the country after my year of teach­ But I am diverging into politics, has visibly painful effects on the wom­ ing was up. It was an old, obsolete something I had hoped to avoid as en themselves who sense that some­ unit, and all this business of paying much as possible, though it is difficult thing evil is going on but have no duty on it seemed idiotic to me. I told in a culture where so much of a per­ social support for fighting it! The no­ them so-moreover, it was hell finding son's life is a political matter. Let me tion of equality of the sexes seems un­ a parking place near the train station, from here on stick to more cultural and known in Europe. so I argued about it, saying "The rule social impressions, whether they touch As you go further to the East, the is stupid. I can only remain here for a on politics or not. In Europe the pri­ unequal treatment of women becomes year anyway, the voltage is wrong on vate and public sectors are not even as more and more evident. Some of my the machine so I will have to use a well distinguished as in America, so students hailed from Saudi Arabia, transformer. Why bother me with all keeping one's focus to just one realm is Syria and Iran. Arranged marriages this nonsense? Just let me have my virtually impossible. Politics will una­ were common in their cultures. Some computer." They looked at each other voidably creep into any cultural even complained that their minds and finally decided to let me take the observation. were assaulted adversely by all the machine, not wishing to put up with There are certain aspects of the casual coeducation that prevailed in me. This sort of thing occurred more European reverence for public authori­ the West. than once, and on each occasion I de­ ty that are welcome to any civilized in­ To some, even among the American feated the bureaucracy. dividual. One finds, for example, very intellectuals who live and teach in But the locals did not stand up to little public dirt in much of Europe. Europe, this is all a matter of cultural the bureaucrats. Most of the time they The act of Iittering has never seemed Liberty 45 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 civil to me, despite Waiter ,Block's ar­ Norway are people very slow drivers be damned! If construction is going on guments in Defending tHe Uhdefendable. and the authorities picky about speed in Europe, one may have to drive ten Happily it is not known to most limits.) The slow drivers make way miles out of one's way and the public Europeans, though there are excep­ for the fast ones, pedestrians don't lin­ works authorities think nothin~ of it. If tions in the seedier districts of ger, and the atmosphere is something an accident needs to be investigated, Amsterdam, Zurich, and other larger near that found at Le Mans or Monza traffic just halts and no one can move cities. during the racing season. Despite the for several hours. On the Italian auto­ But on the whole Northern Europe faster, more aggressive driving, I saw strade, between Milan and Bologna, I is clean and tidy. The road-side fecu­ only one accident during my entire saw tie-ups that must have been thirty lence-beer cans, Styrofoam cups, plas­ stay in Europe. miles long, with no visible move­ tic bottles, tires, and whatnot that one Europeans tend to regard their cars ment-people sitting atop their vehi­ finds along many roads in the U.S.­ as precious toys and seem to think of cles, eating lunch, waiting until the simply is not tolerated in most of driving as a skill that they must culti­ police decided they had had their look­ Europe. The kind of grime one sees vate as a matter of pride. I suspect see. To make a free lane for the cars here on many abandoned buildings, some of the motivations lying behind simply didn't occur to anyone. cars, and machinery of all kinds just is the phenomenon don't reflect nicely And the same could be found in not in evidence in the most of Europe. on the drivers. Some seem to take several cities. When some street need­ Driving 10,000 miles, from Norway to driving too seriously-as if their char­ ed repaving, it was simply shut down Spain, I saw practically none of the acter or virtue depended on their and traffic was rerouted around town, thoughtless litter one so often encoun­ speed. This makes for efficiency, period. Who cared for the public? No ters on this side of the Atlantic. again, but not for fellow feeling. one. It is the authorities who are in (Roadsides are a bit messier in Italy Others seem to lord their powerful command, it is the state that calls the and Eastern Europe, but even in these driving machines over the rest, in the shots, the people-you and I and the countries the litter is far less evident fashion of ancient dukes or barons. rest of us mere individuals-be than in much of the U.S.) Still, 1'd much rather drive on the damned! I was often annoyed by the slow Autobahn than on an American Europe ,has a hold on me. I love pace and inflexibility of European life. expressway. many of its sights and sounds. But liv­ In Switzerland the trading hours are But when it comes to certain fea­ ing there would be more than I could written in granite and no one will even tures of travel, watch out. The public stand. 0 consider a change. Everything is closed on Sunday except some tourist shops and restaurants. In Italy, Spain and Letters, continued from page 6 France the siesta seems sacred. And while these practices appear innocent environmental quality. Like most po­ however, it must, by its very nature, enough and it seems like a sensible litical activities, environmental protec­ try to solve the problem by using only practice to follow the maxim "When in tion becomes another method of one solution. An example of this is the Rome do as the Romans do"-the re­ transferring income to the politically government's solution to the wild fires sulting pace is irritatingly slow, at least influential. And, complete central in Yellowstone National Park in the for this American. management of the environment is no summer of 1989. By having set policies Even so, I must admit that the slow­ more possible than central planning to solve problems the government is in er pace encouraged weekend relaxa­ of the economy. no position to hedge its policies against tion. The enforced leisure, combined Fortunately, it is unnecessary to the possibility that their understanding with the primitive quality of European later proves to be incorrect. television, encouraged me to read sev­ explain how every possible environ­ Using market solutions to solve en­ en novels in as many months, a pace mental problem will be solved in a li­ vironmental problems may not give us that quickly dwindled after my return bertarian utopia. Market-oriented to the U.S. solutions can be developed for con­ the most optimal solutions in all cases, Motoring was the one exception to crete environmental problems. Some but it gives alternative solutions a the slower pace that prevailed in political involvement can end imme­ chance to prove themselves, as well as Europe. There people tend to drive diately. Perhaps, one day, all political hedging society against the disastrous fast, which I found far more pleasura­ involvement can end. consequences of using the wrong ble and efficient than the constant mo­ W. William Woolsey policy. seying about that one finds in America. Charleston, S. Car. Solutions to the commons problem Hardly anyone crawls about the are emerging. I wish Mr. Hospers roads. Men and women alike drive ag­ Political Limitations would spend more time analyzing gressively, tailgating those who drive What Mr. Hospers (Liberty, Jan these solutions instead of giving fuel slowly, passing at the first chance. 1989) does not seem to realize is that for governmental, authoritarian control Speed limits are a joke in most places; there is not just one answer to the en­ over the environment. in Germany there are no speed limits vironmental problem. If the govern­ John Cralley Shaw at all. (Only in Denmark, Sweden and ment tries to solve the problem, Houston, Tex. 46 Liberty Essay

The End of Political Activislll by Jeffrey Friedman

The trouble with political activism is that it encourages an unreflective dogma­ tism that serves neither to propagate liberty nor enrich the lives of its practitioners.

The most amazing thing about the Libertarian Party is how it still grips the minds of its supporters-and even its detractors. There was a time when the notion of promoting libertarian ideas through politics did not seem as natural as rain. In fact, when the LP was founded in 1971, such figures as Murray Roth­ bard maintained that it was premature. state is the product of the efforts of the make a breakthrough. Others think The counter-argument at that time Communist Party U.S.A. more TV advertising, or accepting fed­ was that the LP would be an education­ This does not mean that the LP has eral matching funds, will do the trick. al vehicle that might effectively take ad­ done no good-far from it. It has put Tellingly, even those who consider the vantage of Americans' brief election­ the word libertarian on the map. And it possibility that the LP has failed are re­ year interest in politics. This implied an has gathered together most of the peo­ duced to considering such "alterna­ experimental, empirical approach of the ple who were already libertarians, in tives" as starting a PAC or joining the kind that must characterize any good many cases making them aware of that GOP. Regardless of its ultimate fate, the strategy. If the LP failed to educate, identity for the first time. LP has long since politicized the liber­ then presumably the likes of Rothbard But would anyone dispute that the tarian movement, in the sense of mak­ would be proven right and the political task of changing minds, or at least of in­ ing its members take for granted a very approach would be abandoned. . fluencing young and still open minds, dubious but, in any case, hypothetical as­ But even before the 1972 campaign has largely gone unfulfilled by the LP? sumption: that the way to change socie­ was over, the LP had taken on a life of And in retrospect, could we really have ty is through politics. Thus, even when its own. The question of abandoning expected otherwise? Can five-minute they question the efficacy of the LP, li­ the LP was never seriously debated, TV spots really be seen as a way to re­ bertarians now rarely ask whether polit­ and the cycle of unrealistic electoral ex­ verse the complex of moral, historical, ical strategies serve any useful function, pectations, dashed hopes, burn-out, and economic assumptions and ignor­ let alone the educational one they were fresh illusions and renewed disillusion­ ance we are up against? supposed to. ment had begun. The libertarian political strategy­ "The educational strategy"-how The Libertarian Party is like a black in all its permutations, not just that of dull and naive and, as we liked to say hole: the rest of the universe sees little the LP-requires evading the fact that in the so-called Crane Machine, of it, but it sucks in the energy and at­ we are trying to change the course of "plonky" that seemed in the salad days tention of those already inside, warping our culture. There is no reason to as­ of the libertarian movement (1978-80). their perceptions of the outside world. sume this can be accomplished by run­ But it need not connote, as it did for us Judged from a perspective at all re­ ning candidates for office. But that is then, fruitless attempts to "convert" moved from the tiny realm of the LP­ just what the political strategy people, one by one, by shoving copies judged by its impact on the rest of our assumes. of pamphlets and magazines into their society-the Libertarian Party is, unfor­ The hold of the political strategy is unwilling hands. That is an educational tunately, a failure. If, as many believe, evident in the public evaluations of the strategy that might have worked in the free-market ideas are gaining ground in disappointing vote cast for Ron Paul. nineteenth century, when all sorts of the real world, it is no more the product Many still cling to the hope that, with crackpot ideas ran rampant because of current LP efforts, as heroic as they enough persistence and professional­ people were willing to listen to the are, than the acceptance of the welfare ism, the LP will (somehow) ultimately street-corner hawker of ideological Liberty 47 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 nostrums. Those days are gone. In the the culture of our day and age, then, one rest of our culture-even if such advoca­ twentieth century it is no longer possi­ goes to the top of the intellectual pyra­ cy could be made to appear respectable? ble for most people to take seriously po­ mid-to the professors who educate There are, then, at least two reasons litical or other ideas that are not Hayek's intellectuals-and works one's political strategies inherently tend to sanctioned by the cultural estab­ way down. That is the twentieth-century fail. One is that it is difficult, if not im­ lishment. 1 educational strategy. possible, to attempt to get a hearing for F. A. Hayek has detected the pyrami­ Political strategies, on the other ideas the culture considers illegitimate. dal structure of that establishment. The hand, try vainly to work from the bot­ The other is that even given such a hear­ "second-hand dealers in ideas"-mass­ tom up. Not only is this an inefficient ing, politics cannot persuasively com­ media and entertainment figures and use of resources, but it requires combat­ municate the reasons for holding such other opinion leaders-simply retail the ing the constant stream of negative in­ ideas. This leads to another familiar original ideas of the creative thinkers, formation spilling down the pyramid. frustration of libertarian politics, one for consumption by the masses. The ex­ How can even the best-financed po­ which, again, I witnessed almost daily plosion of knowledge and of scientific litical campaign hope to compete with during the Clark campaign: the fact that expertise has conspired to make only the entire culture? Debates over whether even those members of the media and those who are socially or culturally mar­ to accept matching funds or run TV ads the public who do try to take libertarian ginal receptive to views positions seriously that have not been legi­ are bewildered by timized by the arbiters The Libertarian Party is like a black hole: the rest their underlying ratio­ of respectable values of the universe sees little of it, but it sucks in the ener­ nale, and thus tend to and ideas. Ironically, gy and attention of those already inside, warping their focus on "laundry the more knowledge lists" of seemingly bi- there is, the more we perceptions of the rest of the universe. zarre LP platform need cultural gate­ planks. This has less keepers to keep out the: to do with any clutter. This is why, despite the accessi­ pale into absurdity when we consider "media bias" against the LP than with a bility to so many people of so much the actual position of the best-funded, simple failure to appreciate the complex knowledge and the means of creating it, most professional LP campaign, that of reasons libertarians have for, say, favor­ our culture is more homogeneous now Ed Clark in 1980. The post-1980 debate ing a completely free market. This fail­ than it was a hundred years ago (when over "principle vs. opportunism" misi­ ure, I suggest, stems from the we set aside the affects of the immigra­ dentified the real tension Clark faced: he inadequacy of the political forum for tion of people from other societies) . was constantly caught between, on the communicating such reasons. As liber­ The gate-keepers of cultural respect­ one hand, the effort to attain the cultural tarians well know, politics is the most ability Hayek calls intellectuals. He respectability he needed in order to be simplistic, irrational segment of modern writes that they "are the organs which taken seriously, and, on the other, the mass culture; politicians invariably do modern society has developed for fact that the more respectable he got, the their best to follow, not change, the bas­ spreading knowledge and ideas, and it less "educating" he could do. If his TV est, most idiotic passions of the electo­ is their convictions and opinions which spots or personal appearances said any­ rate. So what makes us think we can use operate as the sieve through which all thing really radical, they would be ig­ this forum to educate people about radi­ new conceptions must pass before they nored; but if they were respectable cally disturbing, hyper-rational ideas? can reach the masses." 2 Note Hayek's enough to be taken seriously, what liber­ These fundamental dilemmas of the claim that the role of intellectuals serves tarian principles ~ould they possibly political strategy are easily lost sight of, a social purpose. Whether or not one communicate? however, because that strategy has be­ agrees that it is the clutter-reducing pur­ But focusing on this aspect of the come so much a part of libertarians' na­ pose I huve just suggested, one must, I Clark campaign is itself symptomatic of ture that they rarely stop to ask what it think, come to grips with the fact that the unquestioned premise that politics is is supposed to accomplish, and how. we do live in a society that is structurally an effective means of education. For it Yes, of course, TV ads could have averse to ideas that have not been legiti­ assumes that if there were a way to brought Ron Paul more votes in 1988. mized by the top of the intellectual overcome the "principle vs. opportun­ But what good does it do for the LP vote pyramid. ism" dilemma-say, by packaging radi­ total to skyrocket from one-half of one In our society, opinion leaders calism in a veneer of respectability, percent to one or even two percent? (Hayek's "intellectuals") take their cues which the Clark campaign probably did Whose mind does that change? Match­ from expert opinion-i.e., from those as much as humanly possible-this ing funds would bring more votes. Tak­ even higher on the intellectual pyra­ would accomplish something impor­ ing over the Republican party would, mid-which they propagate not just by tant. But what evidence is there. that too (!). But all of this, which passes for interviewing the likes of Lester Thurow merely advocating radical measures, or strategic debate, comes down to quib­ on the news, but, much more important­ even explaining them cogently for a few bling over political tactics. ly, by exercising the judgment moulded minutes, as Ron Paul was able to do in The strategic question of whether by their own years of secondary and TV interviews, will persuade anyone to any such tactic:s can change anybody's post-secondary education under the tu­ abandon beliefs that have been, and con­ mind has been forgotten. telage of experts. If one wants to change tinue to be, constantly reinforced by the I have heard only one plausible at-

48 Liberty RIGHTS, SCHMIliH'rS tempt to justify the political strategy de­ achieving educational aims-if those No one can be said to be informed on the "rights" issue spite. its manifest failure as an educa­ aims are kept firmly in mind. Even unless they have read these books... tional tool. This attempt concedes the though politics is too superficial to per­ greater efficacy of attempts to reach in­ suade people of libertarian ideas, poli­ THE MYTH OF NATURAL RIGHTS tellectuals, but points out that there are tics can present fleeting images which by'L.A. Rollins L.A. Rollins dissects the lots of non-intellectual libertarians who will affect people when they are later arguments for natural need something to do; the LP fills the confronted with more substantive argu­ rights, cutting through the gap. Ed Clark is cited as a proponent of ments. An educational strategy might faulty logic to the core of ~ libertarian dogma. With this vieW". It should be noted that this give birth to political tactics which took careful research and ample is a backwards approach to strategy: advantage of this, by creating a favora­ documentation, he shows that thinkers like Ayn Rand, rather than determine what would be ef­ ble impression for libertarianism among Murray Rothbard, Tibor fective and then try to secure the neces­ members of the intellectual class. Clark's ef­ Machan and others violate sary resources, we are to tailor our forts to achieve respectability accom­ reason and logic in their defenses of natural rights. strategy to the resources already availa­ plished this in 1980. His campaign (and ·~ ..in The Myth OfNatural Rights, Rollins presents are· ble-regardless of how effective such a the LP in general, at least until then) if futation ofRothbard's argument for Natural Rights. That refutation is sound, and Rothbard is without a serviceable strategy is. viewed as an adjunct to rather than a re­ argument for his main tenet. " The LP can obtain the time and placement for other efforts could be con­ - David Ramsay Steele money of "non-intellectual" libertarians sidered successful. On the other hand, "I am unable to have this work reviewed by anyone... " in one of two ways: either by draining every effort should be made to avoid - Tibor Maehan them away from arguably more effec­ candidates at any level who project a "Rollins finds holes, contradictions, absurdities and vague­ ness in the written expositions of numerous natural rights tive tactics aimed at the top of the intel­ crackpot, right-wing or otherwise intel­ advocates. " lectual pyramid, or by mobilizing "new" lectually unacceptable image. Ron -Jorge Amador resources that donors would be Paul's Robertson gambit could have o The Myth of Natural Rights, $7.95 postpaid. unwilling to provide for such education­ been disastrous had it become widely al tactics. The LP unquestionably does publicized. (That it was pursued indi­ NATURAL lAW divert some resources from what might cates that the LP has lost sight of educa­ Or Don't Put A Rubber be more strategically sound projects, tional goals in favor of fruitless efforts to On Your Willy such as the Institute for Humane Studies mobilize voting blocs that are supposed­ byRobert Anton Wilson or the Reason Foundation. But most of ly already well-disposed toward WARNING: The Attorney General has deter­ the millions of dollars and hours spent libertarianism.) mined that this book may be hazardous to your by the LP are newly "created," not di­ The important thing is that any dogma. verted from elsewhere. That is to say, political tactics be subordinated to a Robert Anton Wil­ son - novelist, poet, for most people scholarship will never larger educational strategy. This is nec­ playwright, lecturer, be as inspiring as a presidential cam­ essary not just because the current poli­ stand-up comic, Fut­ urist and psycholo­ paign, so scholarly educational efforts tics-as-an-end-in-itself approach is gist - lets fly at Mur­ can't be seen as harmed very much by psychologically debilitating, ultimately ray Rothbard, George the LP's use of resources: those resourc­ Smith, Samuel Ed­ self-defeating and eminently unsuccess­ ward Konkin III, and es' would, by and large, otherwise be ful, but because of the nlore subtle ef­ other purveyors of unavailable. fects of the politicization of libertarian the "claim that some sort of metaphysical But how does the LP "create" those thought. entity called a 'right' resources? By encouraging exaggerated I said before .that the libertarian resides in a human expectations about the success of presi­ being like a 'ghost' residing in a haunted movement has been politicized by the house." dential campaigns and other political LP's initial success; but the very notion '~ scathing, provocative, and humurous attack on the tactics. This is what moves people to that libertarianism must be a move­ concept of 'Natural Law,' particularly the version defended by Mu"ay Rothbard, George H Smith, and give so generously of time, money and ment-or even an ism-rests on the po­ Sam Konkin. " hope to the LP. Thus the cruel hype litical prejudice. Rothbard may have -Laissez Faire Books about millions of votes that never mate­ been a skeptic about the LP, but he soon '~ ..an appropriately savage attack on the 'natural law' rialize is necessary if the LP is to generate jumped on the bandwagon because he doctrines ofcertain 'libertarian' pundits... " -S.E. Parker, The Egoist the very commitment of non­ saw that the political strategy furthered "The 'Natural Law' debate has been raging around intellectuals' resources that, by the Clark a style of libertarian thought he had'al­ anarcho-libertarian circles for some time now. Well folks, it's allover. 'Natural Law' died an unnatural argument, is the LP's raison d'etre. Leav­ ready done much to establish-a polem­ death, murdered ('executed' ifyou insist) by notorious ing aside the ethics of raising false ex­ ical, dogmatism that is indispensable to stand-up comic Robert Anton Wilson." pectations, sooner or later they are a "movement," but which closes the -The Arrow bound to be dashed once too often. So minds of its members, narrows their in­ o Natural Law, 58.95 postpaid ______ooAJ1 IBI with each disappointing campaign, dis­ terests and makes them less complete LOOMPANICS UNLIMITED illusioned LP members will drop out. human beings. Witness the hue and cry PO Box 1197 This does not mean that, apart from about the "invasion" of Austrian Port Townsend, WA 98368 supporting libertarian educational insti­ economics by hermeneutics, or the Please rush my copies of the books I have checked tutions, there is no strategically sound reluctance to admit that serious environ­ above. activity for "non-intellectual libertari­ mental problems may not lend them­ Name _ Address _ ans" to pursue. For instance, nominally selves to "libertarian" solutions---or City _ political strategies may be useful in even to admit that serious State Zip _ Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 environmental problems exist! A great has good evidence for it. An ideologue, the world but that do not prevent us deal of libertarian thought is devoted to by contrast, is under no obligation to from learning from the world, even

developing ways to stick one's head so question whether his ideas are well- from parts of it we used to see as· "evil.11 deeply in the sand that nothing can dis- taken or are mere prejudices. Such self- Thinking of ourselves first as. people (or turb one's devotion to the "pure cause." criticism would get in the way of his intellectuals, or truth-seekers), and as Even among libertarian academics being a polemicist; it would entail giv- "libertarians" second, and only contin­ and intellectuals there is a pronounced ing the benefit of the doubt to his "evil" gently, is the path to effective influence inclination to be political:4 to judge ideas enemies and looking for gray areas not on society, because only open-minded by the support they lend to politically conducive to political conflict with thinkers and scholars will transform the preordained (i.e., libertarian) conclu- them. One who takes ideas seriously has top of the intellectual pyramid. But this sions, rather than by those ideas' validi- little use for the Manichean view of the is not the ultimate reason to develop this ty. Naturally, those ,..... ------self-concept. The real who indulge this in- reason is that until clination would not Rothbard jumped on the LP bandwagon because he we do, we are noth- do so if they did not saw that it furthered a style of libertarian thought he had ing more than ideo­ believe libertarian- Z d d h bZ' h Z· Z d · logues, reduced to ism to be valid; my a rea y one muc to esta IS -a po emlca, ogmatlsm the level of party point is not that which is indispensable to a /Imovement," but which closes hacks, the victims of one's politics is not that its members' minds, narrows their interests and our own dogmas. based on one's per- k h 1 Z This is a great posi- ception of the truth. ma es t em ess comp ete human beings. tion for a "revolu- But rather than tionary cadre" to be viewing that per- in, but not for self- ception as a tentative and fallible con- world encouraged by politics. The politi- respecting people with minds of their clusion that is open to argument, the cian, however, must paint those with own. Q "politicized" libertarian tends to view it whom he disagrees as medacious, in Notes as central to his personal identity, order to mobilize his supporters' politi­ 1. See Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A which is therefore threatened by differ- cal energies. This is the least attractive Short History of the Agrarian RerJolt in America ent views. To label oneself "a libertari- and most effective feature of Ayn (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), for a an" (or "a socialist" or "a Rand's writing, and it will survive, in vivid description of this change. conservative"), i.e., an adherent of an the view that libertarians are opposed to 2. F.A. Hayek, "The Intellectuals and Socialism" ideology called libertarianism, is to risk and by "The State" and its evil minions,

Liberty 53 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 especially as most people's preference for discipline in exchange for wages reflects be conducted in the absence of more-work-and-more-products makes workers' preferences. He repeats the insurance, banking, and a market for life a lot easier for the minority who opt usual communist claims that most occu­ real estate. Even if this could be done by for less-work-and-Iess-products? pations could be eliminated with no loss, some planning system which employed Black points out that primitive hunt­ and that "automation" can do almost fewer people than now employed in er-gatherers didn't work very hard and anything: these industries (a planning system spent a lot of their time loafing around. Most work serves the predatory pur­ which so far no socialist or communist But we can't go back to those circum­ poses of commerce and coercion and has been able to come up with, despite stances, nor can we approximate that life­ can be abolished outright. The rest much attention to the matter since style very closely and still maintain can be automated away and/or Mises's challenge in 1920) this would advanced industry, though we could transformed-by the experts, the still mean that only the difference be­ gradually approach it by reduced hours workers who do it-into creative, tween employment in the planning ap­ and more flexible work schedules, and a playlike pastimes whose variety and paratus and employment in banking, conviviality will make extrinsic in- few individuals can ap- insurance, and real es­ proximate it fairly tate could be counted as closely by a combina­ Whenever Black strays into economics, he is out of his a saving, and against tion of occasional work that would have to be and living off depth. He thinks the services sector is useless. Unless he set any reduction in out­ handouts. can actually see something he can draw a picture of, like put elsewhere, due to Part of the reason sausages coming out of a sausage machine, he can't see the planning system's the primordial hunters being a less efficient al- didn't do more work the point. locator than banking, might be that they saw insurance, and real little profit in it because estate. ducements like the capitalist carrot of their restricted options. Ifyou have one and the Communist stick equally It is likely that, as essentially an anar­ animal carcass to keep you going for the obsolete. (147) chocommunist, Black just vaguely ima­ next week or two, it's a waste of effort to gines that no allocation is necessary, or Work which serves the purposes of get another one, and what else is there to that it will happen automatically by mag­ commerce cannot be abolished without a do except swap stories? When such hunt­ ic. Whenever he strays into economics or collapse of industry. In the absence of er-gatherer societies encounter more tech­ anything to do with the administration spontaneously-formed market prices of nicallyadvanced societies with a greater of industry, he is out of his depth. Black factors of production, maintenance of ad­ range of products, the hunter-gatherers thinks the tertiary or services sector is vanced industry is not practically feasi­ generally manifest a powerful desire to useless (29) . Unless he can actually see ble, as Mises explained in his writings on get some of these products, even if this something he can draw a picture of, like economic calculation. puts them to some trouble. sausages coming out of a sausage ma­ In the market, automation occurs Most of humankind has been practic­ chine, he can't see the point. Planning, when it pays, a sign that the products are ing agriculture for several thousand co-ordinating, communicating, organiz­ worth more to consumers than the re­ years, having at some stage found this ing are all worthless activities. By analo­ sources used up. If automation were in­ more productive than hunting. Black gy one might say that the brain is a troduced where it did not pay, this suggests (19) that even the poor farmers useless organ in the body, since plainly it would indicate that the resources de­ who constitute most of the world's popu­ doesn't actually do anything. ployed to install the automated plant lation are in some way better off than the Black continues: "we can take a meat­ were being drawn away from more ur­ denizens of advanced industrial socie­ cleaver to production work itself. No gent applications, and total output for ties. But these poor farmers also crave more war production, nuclear power, society would fall. the products of advanced industry. junk food, feminine hygiene deodorant­ As incomes continue to rise, automa­ Millions avidly migrate to the great cit­ and above all, no more auto industry to tion will gradually become profitable in ies, plantations, and mines,· where they speak of" (29). As for war production, I ever more areas of industry, but this can improve their lot by becoming wage agree with him. The difficult bit is first of does not mean that we can automate workers, often under harsher conditions all to eliminate the possibility of war. now as if we already had the higher in­ After that, abolishing war production is than anything seen in the U.S. for many a comes of tomorrow. (A less important, child's play. He offers no hint on how to long year. Though usually not in any but symptomatic, fallacy in the above danger of starving, these migratory la­ eliminate the possibility of war. Cutting quotation from Black is his assumption out nuclear power·will mean more ex­ borers choose to reduce their leisure time that anyone who does a job is an expert and increase the harshness of their work­ pensive electricity and more environ­ on organizing that job.) mental damage from the burning of ing lives, for the sake of bicycles, radios, In slightly more detail, Black alleges fossil fuels; everyone is to be made poor­ stoves, dresses, and other appetizing that "Entire industries, insurance and er and sicker, just to soothe the phobias fruits of capitalism. They don't seem at banking and real estate for instance, con­ of a handful of ignoramuses. all keen to join the Bushmen. sist of nothing but useless paper shuf­ Suppressing synthetic groin perfumes, fling" (29). Again, no argument is The Usual Communist Fallacies cars, and so-called junk food is a simple presented, and Black does not explain Of course, Black does not frankly ac­ matter of Black's wishing to impose his knowledge that submitting to workplace how the allocation of resources would 54 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 personal preferences on people who dif­ interesting exercise to make the empiri­ is sometimes worth the risks beeause of fer from him. cal comparison. But as incomes rise, jobs the products. If work is homicide, it is It's Murder become safer-workers have more alter­ justifiable homicide. natives and can insist on greater com­ According to Black, "work is mass pensation for high risk. Even if we A Black View of Libertarianism murder or genocide" (26). He cites statis­ imagine a case where a worker has to Black's many criticisms of libertarians tics showing the large numbers of people take a highly dangerous job in order to mostly amount to belaboring the fact that killed or injured at work, and adds, for m.or~ m.urd~r­ they do not sharl! his own prodaimQd example, nearly all auto casualties be­ avoid starvation, thig ig no objective of "abolition of work." A liber­ cause these arise while "going to work, ous than the situation of Black's hunter­ tarian, he indignantly declares, /lis a coming from work, looking for work, or gatherers, who can either starve or run trying to forget about work" (27). Work, the risk that they will be killed while Republican who takes drugs" (141). says Black, "institutionalizes homicide as hunting. Aside from the fact that Black's not being a way of life." Work involves risks, sometimes great quite candid when he pretends that abol­ People can die or suffer injury in any risks. But-and this is rather obvious-it ishing work is his objective, it's easy to activity. Any time you eat, you may choke to death. If an activity occupies a great deal of people's time, it will proba­ bly occasion a great deal of death and in­ Liberty's advertising jury. A large proportion of serious accidents occurs in the home-people fall downstairs, electrocute themselves, rates are more than and so forth. If we add accidents which hit people "going home, coming from home, or trying to forget about home," reasonable.. the toll is even higher. Does this show that housing is inherently murderous? Liberty believes that advertisers should be able to reach an intelligent li­ "What the statistics don't show is that bertarian audience at affordable advertising rates. In contrast to most smaller tens of millions of people have their life­ circulation libertarian magazines which charge extremely high rates, typically spans shortened by work-which is all in the range of $125 to $500 CPM (cost per thousand magazines sold), that homicide means, after all. Consider Liberty's advertising rates are remarkable low-less than $30 CPM. the doctors who work themselves to death in their fifties. Consider all the oth­ reason was for years the only libertarian periodical to offer advertisering er workaholics" (27). To the extent that rates of less than $50 CPM. Now reason has competition: despite its lower cir­ there is anything in this argument, it culation and more ideologically focused readership, Liberty offers ad rates shows that work can be suicide (not hom­ that are actually lower than reason's: the CPM for a full page ad in Liberty is icide, which is usually defined as invol­ only $29.16, compared to $35.35 for reason untary on the part of the victim). And indeed this raises the interesting point that suicide is a matter of degree, and Liberty's rates are LIFEable that no one is against any degree of suicide. and Newsweekable, tool IIWorkaholics" are people who like to work hard and long. This may shorten In fact, Liberty's rates are so low that they are competitive with major their lives, it may make them miserable, mass market periodicals as well: it costs $29.18 to reach 1,000 buyers of but it is their choice. Climbing mountains Newsweek, almost exactly the same as with Liberty. It costs $36.36 to or exploring the sea bed will probably reach 1,000 buyers of LIFE-about 25% more than Liberty. shorten your life, as compared with be­ ing a supermarket sales clerk, but that's hardly sufficient to call those outdoor And your message stands pastimes homicidal. Endless partying and self-indulgence, which Black seems out in Liberty! to applaud, are probably more hazard­ Advertising sometimes has a way of getting lost in some periodicals. ous to your health than some varieties of Newsweek, for example, is 50% advertising. LIFE is 44% ads. Even reason hard work. contains about 23% ad pages. But recent issues of Liberty have contained This is not to deny that many jobs are dangerous. Industrial manual workers only 9% ad pages. Your message will not be lost in advertising clutter in who join the armed forces during a mod­ Liberty! ern conventional war may run less risk Whether you are a major advertiser or a modest enterprise you can get of death or injury than by following their your message to Liberty's highly educated, high-income readers. For infor­ peacetime occupations-it would be an mation, call our advertising manager at (206) 385-5097. Or write us; our ad­ dress is Liberty, Advertising Sales, PO Box 1167, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 pin guilt by association onto any way Gene Autry was a cowboy. er the people who vote, the more position, from a preposterous standpoint Black makes cute remarks about New powerful each vote becomes: if only a which lumps all opponents together. Wave ("withered on the vinyl"), hundred people voted in a presidential Faced with the demand to abolish Transubstantiation ("Man bites God"), election, those hundred would be the breathing, Bob Black is in the same con­ Vegetarianism ("You are what you eat"), most powerful individuals in history. As servative camp as Dan Quayle. The dif­ socialists ("sheep in wolves' clothing"), people stop voting, the greater the incen­ ferences between them are purely and himself ("secretly famous"). He tive to vote. cosmetic distractions; they're both abject doesn't care whom he upsets ("Sure the General disenchantment with politics apologists for respiratory oppression. Jews are Christ-killers, but what have is not an encouraging sign for anti­ Black maintains (142-48) that since they done for us lately?"). He admires statists, unless it is accompanied by be­ work, the market, the nuclear family, and Robert E. Howard and deplores Woody lief in some positive alternative. Since 99 other things he doesn't care for have Allen. Does any of this have anything to percent of the people who don't vote are been going on for centuries, along with do with "abolishing work"? Almost every bit as convinced of the absolute ne­ the state, it's therefore foolish to try to nothing. Black apparently imagines he's cessity for a powerful state as the people abolish the state while retaining these saying things which all fit together into a who do vote, a major abstentionist trend other institutions. In a similar vein, it's grand analysis of culture and prescrip­ might be a prelude to authoritarian rule. myopic to seek to abolish slavery with­ tion for revolution, but he's just venting Yet I don't see non-voting as a serious out abolishing the state, to abolishcanni­ his sundry likes and dislikes. challenge to democratic legitimacy, for balism without abolishing eating, to Although I think that Black's desired the non-voters could vote if they chose, abolish witch-burning without abolish­ form of society· is unrealizable, what is and their views on policy are very close ing religion, or to abolish work without even more indefensible is his theory of to those of the voters. If it's thought de­ abolishing breathing. how this form of society can be brought sirable to have as many votes as possible "The abolition of work is, of course, into being. For example, Black praises used, then permitting people to sell or an affront to common sense. But then so and recommends the assassination of donate their votes to others might be a is the idea of abolishing the state" (145). schoolteachers. While that may for him beneficial reform. Exactly. But this doesn't show that abol­ be an invigorating fantasy, its advocacy Black claims that since the workplace ishing work is as rea­ (in the habitual anti­ sonable as abolishing quarian argot of the the state. Common Just as theft does not embody an alternative property pseudo-left, he says sense consists of theo­ system, and lying does not embody an alternative lan­ "the factory") is an in­ ries held by millions of guage, so absenteeism, strikes, sabotage, and the rest, do strument of social con­ people. It can be wrong trol, enforcing the and it can be changed. not embody an alternative system of organizing division between deci- The mere fact that some industry. sion-makers and order­ theory conforms to takers, "the revolt common sense, or scan- against work- dalizes common sense, has no bearing on is wickedly irresponsible, because some reflected in absenteeism, sabotage, turno­ whether that theory is true or false. foolish wretch, less slippery and more ver, embezzlement, wildcat strikes, and People who oppose a particular com­ literal-minded than Black, might act goldbricking-has far more liberatory monsense notion should try to make out upon it, resulting in one or more mur­ promise than the machinations of 'liber­ a persuasive case against it. dered teachers, one hopelessly blighted tarian' politicos and propagandists" Sticking His Tongue Out killer, and a great many people upset (147). and alarmed. Just suppose that Black were right I recommend Black's book as an en­ Apart from the wrongness of such an about the goal of "abolishing work," tertaining mosaic of amusing, occasional­ action, I cannot see how it is supposed where is the "liberatory promise" in the ly perceptive, frequently silly to bring Black's (allegedly workless but activities he recommends? How could observations on various randomly­ actually job-enriched). form of society they lead to what he calls the abolition of chosen aspects of our culture, from some­ into existence. If all the teachers in the work? Undoubtedly such activities may one whose feverish efforts to be as radi­ world were killed tomorrow morning, benefit their practitioners ina small way, cal as possible sometimes lead him to be the result would not be the abolition of as may pilfering from employers. But an interesting reactionary. (But there are work, nor any movement in that direc­ these activities don't hold out any prom­ plenty of trendy-lefty shibboleths he tion, nor any improvement in the lives ise of eliminating or transforming work, can't let go of, as witness his animadver­ of the great majority of people. Nor any more than pilfering could eliminate sion on Proposition 13, on page 85. He would it be any weakening in the power or transform the institution of private wants to abolish the state, but as long as of the state. property. As with pilfering, the main suf­ we have a state, Black prefers it to be a Our author has high hopes for the ferers are other workers. And after all, fat one.) From time to time, Black lapses, growth of non-voting, but these are mis­ it's very much in any worker's interest against his better judgement, into quite placed. Lack of interest in elections re­ that most other workers do not sabotage, sensible arguments (pages 88, 135, for in­ flects the fact that there's little difference goldbrick, wildcat-strike, and so forth. stance). My strictures on Black are exclu­ among politicians, competing for the Just as theft does not embody an al­ sively concerned with his claim to be a Middle. Voting is a waste of time be­ ternative property system, and lying revolutionary. He is a revolutionary the cause there are so many voters-the few- does not embody an alternative 56 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 language, so absenteeism, strikes, sabo­ can be explained and argued for, and if this book in the Laissez-Faire Books cata­ tage, and the rest, do not embody an al­ attractive to most people, adopted and log. "He had the kind of impact that lasts ternative system of organizing industry. implemented v/ith conscious fore­ a lifetime." If an alternative doesn't exist, then we thought. But the truth is that Black has no LeFevre served as the model for can't improvise ourselves into it by an alternative. Hence his interminable atti­ Bernardo de la Paz in Robert Heinlein's unconscious "revolt," and if an alterna­ tudinizing. I don't really mind that Black libertarian science fiction classic, The tive does exist, then we don't need to ap­ is a self-proclaimed poseur, but why Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Kurt proach it in such a hit-and-miss way; it does he have to work so hard at it? 0 Vonnegut quoted and satirized him in his anti-capitalist novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. "It is a measure of the breadth of Robert LeFevre: "Truth is Not a Half-way Place," by Carl Watner Robert leFevre's influence and charac­ Gramling, s. C: The Voluntaryists, 1988, 236 pp., $14.95. ter," Karl Hess writes in the Foreword to this book, "that so many will remember him for so many different reasons. Teacher. Schoolmaster. Consultant. The Wonderful Wizard Businessman. Philosopher. Soldier. Religionist. Social Theorist. Debater. Author. Socratic Goad. Experimenter. of Liberty Maddening Demander of Consistency. Searcher. Finder. Good Friend. Implacable Foe. All of that is detailed in Ethan O. Waters development of contemporary libertar­ this book." ianism. And what a remarkable book it is. If you strip away Robert LeFevre's In the late 1950s and early 1960s, his I can scarcely recall reading a more reputation as a libertarian philosopher Freedom School (1955-1968) educated hagiographic work. Even Barbara and teacher and look at the events of his hundreds in libertarian theory, including Branden's 1961 biography of Ayn Rand life, you would think he was nuts. Well, his own unusual anarcho-pacifist no­ (Who Is Ayn Rand?, which has been out maybe "nuts" isn't quite the right word. tions. Among faculty at one time or an­ of circulation-reportedly suppressed­ LeFevre was not simply nuts. There was other were such libertarian luminaries as for the past two decades) achieves its a method to his nuttiness: the method of Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Harper, idolatry by omission of unpleasant de­ a marginally successful cult-leader. That Leonard E. Read, Gordon Tullock, tail. It didn't portray its subject's bizar­ is the most salient conclusion about the Arthur Ekirch, Bruno Leoni, W. H. Hutt reries as virtues, as does the LeFevre life of LeFevre that I derived from Carl and James J. Martin. tome, which explains them away by Watner's pseudo-biography. In the late 1960s, LeFevre helped or­ placing them in the most favorable pos­ When I say "pseudo-biography," I ganize and finance the libertarian revolt sible light. am choosing my words carefully. In liter­ on the campus, publishing Rap magazine Sf LeFevre ally the last passage of the last paragraph and sending "libertarian troubador" Consider the treatment of LeFevre's on the last page of the book, Watner Dana Rohrabacher from campus to cam­ involvement with the I AM Movement, writes: pus, singing and organizing for a wacko religious cult that gained a In late November of [1984] Bob ap­ anarchism. large following during the 1930s. The proached me about writing his biog­ Many prominent libertarians, among movement was the work of the hus­ raphy. He had found it impossible to them Rohrabacher (now a right-wing band-and-wife team of Guy and Edna get a publisher for his 2,000 page au­ congressman), Charles Koch (multi­ Ballard. She was a harpist and occultist; tobiographical manuscript, and he millionaire oil baron who finances the he was a theosophist and paperhanger. wanted someone to pare his story Cato Insitute and formerly financed the In 1930, Guy visited Mount Shasta, a fa­ down to manageable proportions. I Libertarian Party), Durk Pearson and vorite site for American religious cult­ accepted that challenge, and Bob Sandy Shaw (best-selling writers and lived just long enough to read and ists. On its slopes, he encountered one talk-show personalities), Roy Childs comment on the third draft of the "St Germain," an eighteenth-century book you are now holding in your (writer for Laissez-Faire Books), Sam mystic and twentieth-century "ascended hands. Konkin (publisher of New Libertarian), master." In his book Unveiled Mysteries, There you have it: this alleged biogra­ and Robert Kephart (former publisher of Ballard described St Germain as "a ma­ phy is actually a condensed version of an Libertarian Review and several hard­ jestic figure, God-like in appearance, autobiography, edited under the watch­ money newsletters) have expressed ad­ clad in jewelled robes, eyes sparkling ful eye of the subject himself! This is but miration for LeFevre as a libertarian with light and love." St Germain re­ one exampIe of the peculiarities that sur­ thinker, leader and teacher; in many cas­ vealed to Ballard that Shasta is the round LeFevre. es their praise has been effusive. "Robert home of Lemurians, refugees from the LeFevre was a libertarian prophet who ancient kingdom of Mu, now lost below A Libertarian Role-model? had an immense influence on the the Pacific Ocean. Lemurians, who can There is no doubt that Robert modern freedom movement," writes appear or vanish at will, are seven feet LeFevre played an important role in the Childs in his review-advertisement for tall and display a walnut-sized sense or- Liberty 57 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 gan in the middle of their foreheads, a feeling of rising to a great height ten stories above the street, all the while with which they can communicate by within himself. A voice spoke. Only in a trance. At least that's what he told ESP. two words were spoken. ''1 AM." the beautiful Ms Diehl, though Watner St Germain gave Ballard a cup of a That was all. Instantly, the studio does admit that this was "an incredible strange liquid, which enabled Ballard's was filled with the aroma of fresh performance to say the least" (44). roses. At the same moment, Bob In 1939, leFevre had a "dictation" spirit to separate from his body. heard a series of clicks in his mind Wrapped in a sheet of flame, Ballard and with each click a question about from St Germain that he should leave joined St Germain for a tour of the world, the ultimate reality that had baffled Mama (by now Daddy was dead) and the highlight of which was a visit to him, appeared answered. In that in­ move to San Francisco to live with Pearl Royal Teton Mountain. St Germain stant every doubt and fear that he Diehl and her husband, and write a book touched a stone, and the mountain harbored vanished. about the movement. At first Mama opened to reveal large rooms filled with ''1 AM," was the answer ... turned him down flat. But then "a flash gold and silver". a~d a single room in That night at home, Peggy [his wife] of light caused them both to look up. He which all the records of the world were suspected that Bob had had a date. experienced a momentary feeling, like written on golden sheets. The perfume of roses so permeated [sic] he felt before going into one of his Ballard's beliefs, which form the core Bob's scalp that it lingered in his hair trance-like states." It was St Germain, of the I AM Movement's teachings, were for more than a week, despite daily Mama said, telling her to accept Bob's showers and hair rinses ... (pp. 21­ far more elaborate than this brief ac­ 22) resignation. count .suggests. But you get the flavor. So Bob moved into the penthouse in Is that the experience of a rational "Daddy" and "Mama" (as Guy and San Francisco belonging to Pearl and her Edna were known to their followers) man? Or is it the hallucinatory experi- husband Sidney, and set to work writ- soon had a lucrative ing: "The book was ti­ business operation. tled, 1 AM America's They traveled from LeFevre parlayed his mystical experience into a lead­ Destiny, and dealt city to city, ministering ership role with local I AM cultists, eventually joining largely with Bob's to their followers. own personal experi­ Robert LeFevre Mama and Daddy touring from city to city in their ca­ ences in the I AM learned of the Ballards nary-yellow Chryslers, raking in cash from the faithful. movement. It recount.., sometime in 1936 ed the basic. doctrine when he was an an- taught by Daddy and nouncer at a radio sta- extolled the virtues of ence of a religious nut, or the story of a tion in Minneapolis. He resisted the faith America by criticizing both the unions man determined to gain a cult-like for some time, only giving in to it after a and the communists for undermining fantastic experience: following? the government." But Mama apparently Whatever the nature of this peculiar didn't care much for the book. She pub­ He was in Studio B at WTCN, stand­ experience, what it led to was a not terri­ ing next to the grand piano. The re­ licly attacked Bob in June, 1940: "The bly successful career as a cult-leader. cordings he had played on his shift book was a fraud, she told students. He LeFevre parlayed it into a leadership role were stacked on top of the piano. His and Pearl were to be 'blasted' into eter­ relief announcer was in the boot giv­ with local I AM cultists, eventually nity for having the gall to say that Bob ing a commercial. Suddenly, Bob had joining Mama, Daddy and their had ever seen St Germain" (49). entourage, touring A month later, Bob was indicted for from city to city in mail fraud, along with other leaders of their canary-yellow the I AM Movement. The indictment was Chryslers, raking in particularly troubling to him because he cash from the faithful. had been expelled the previous month. LeFevre was the an­ But he persevered. Several of his most nouncer at their relig­ enthusiastic followers stayed with him ious "classes." He after his expulsion from the movement. eventually had his They were to form the nucleus of a "fam­ own conferences with ily" of women who followed him about St Germain, as well as the country, often providing him finan­ other mystical experi­ cial sustenance in his varied career as un­ ences. On one occa­ successful entrepreneur, right-wing sion, for example, he political candidate, television news read­ entered the hotel room er, anti-communist crusader, newspaper of Pearl Diehl, a beau­ editorial writer and, in his later years, tiful fellow cultist on libertarian guru. whom he had sexual designs, by walking LeFevre the Entrepreneur along a four inch wide Shorn of hagiographic embroidery, "My spiritual leader is more enlightened than your spiritual ledge between their LeFevre's adventures are impressive leader!" hotel room windows enough. Consider, for example, his 58 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 entrepreneurial career, exemplified by prize; all they wanted was the publicity. school offering advanced degrees in his­ his experience with the Ormond Hotel in LeFevre tried to get them to accept it tory and economics. Later in 1965, he San Francisco, which he purchased in jointly and co-operate, but they refused: signed historian James J. Martin and 1946. Despite his investing heavily in the "The irony was conspicuous. They were economist W. H. Hutt to five year con­ hotel, it lost money constantly, and he people supposedly dedicated to peace tracts to be his faculty. But Rampart was in danger of foreclosure and bank­ but they couldn't cooperate long enough College had difficulty attracting students ruptcy. He convinced a group of his fol­ to even accept an award together." and was a losing operation. The school's lowers (called "the Group") to take title Irony? Indeed! major source of income was ROgQf to the hotel and as­ Milliken, a multi- sume all liabilities, .....------...... millionaire cotton mill leaving him free of His covey of female followers provided the capital and owner from South debt and them with a Carolina, who required hotel that was a black labor for him to begin his famous Freedom School and many of his employees hole for cash. Within a his knack for getting contributions from multi­ to attend LeFevre's few days, he was con­ millionaire conservative businessmen kept it going. seminars and paid him tacted by "Gypsy" and handsomely. Alas, Gerald Buys, who had ------even this was not earlier discussed trad­ enough. The operating ing his equity in the place for their equity What became of Falcon Lair and "the deficits were covered by bank loans, us­ in another real estate pink elephant, an Group's" financial obligations? Watner ing the real estate (whose value had ap­ old mansion in Los Angeles. They want­ tells us that "Bob believed that it would preciated considerably) as collateral. ed to do the deal. So LeFevre went to his be morally wrong for the Group to profit In 1968, the bank refused to extend followers and asked them to trade the from the property since it had been of­ further credit and asked LeFevre to begin hotel for the mansion. Alas, none of "the fered as a prize. Therefore they were debt reduction. With the operation con­ Group" wanted to move to Los Angeles. willing to let it revert back [sic] to the tinuing to lose money, LeFevre had no No problem, he explained. He would lien-holder." Whether "the Group" had choice. He would have to liquidate. move into the mansion and be its care­ to make good the other liabilities of the Happily, the property had appreciated to taker without salary, in exchange for us­ proposition is not specified. the point where it could be sold, payoff ing. the place rent-free. All "the Group" LeFevre continued his career, taking the mortgage, and leave LeFevre with a would have to do is pay the taxes and his covey of female followers with him nice pile of cash. the mortgage payments until a buyer as he ran for office as a right-wing could be found. Republican, embarked on a nationwide And so LeFevre moved into Falcon anti-communist crusade, and tried to Lair, the old mansion Rudolph Valentino find employment with a variety of con­ had built for his mistress. Alas, Falcon servative and proto-libertarian organiza­ Just the Facts Lair was no easier to sell for LeFevre and tions. Finally he landed a job as editorial Six times a year, The Prdgmatist brings you the facts: How government creates "the Group" than it had been for the pre­ writer for a radical libertarian newspa­ problems or makes them worse. How it vious owners, and "the Group" grew per, the Colorado Springs Gazette squanders our money on causes of all sorts, and what makes t hat possible. tired of paying its expenses. So LeFevre Telegraph. You'll dlso learn the fdets dbout the hatched another plan. He would orga­ LeFevre the Educator marketplace. How it could. and does, nize a contest. The equity (and the liabili­ leave people of all backgrounds wealthier Before long his "family" provided and more se(:ure. ties) of Falcon Lair would be the prize the capital and labor for him to begin his You won't find any ranting, cheerleading awarded to the individual or group that or wishful thinking padding The Pragma­ famous Freedom School, where he came up with the best idea about how to tist. Just facts and figures making the case taught the freedom philosophy he had for freedom and abundance. Plus plent\) of fight communism and socialism and incisive, thoughtful analysis to go along. developed under the tutelage of Harry maintain peace and freedom in the Subscribe today. Hoiles, editor of the Gazette Telegraph, world. and evidently the origin of LeFevre's li­ Three finalists were chosen (the con­ _ Send me a year's worth by First Class bertarian ideas. He developed a real mail. Here's $10.00 for six issues. test's judges·were not revealed, though knack for getting contributions from _I want to see a sample first. Here's $2.00. one suspects LeFevre himself chose the multi-millionaire conservative business­ winners): a group that "wanted to create men, which he used to build his Name a world religion with its center at Falcon Freedom School into the major radical li­ Lair . . . a spokesman for the California bertarian institution of the 1950s. Rocket Society [which] believed that But foolish business decisions proved peace and freedom were achieved by his undoing. The creek on the property power and force [and that] the govern­ overflowed its banks in June 1965, se­ ment should develop a missile armory to verely damaging the buildings. LeFevre insure peace... [and] Reverend Singer hadn't insured them adequately. He bor­ [who] thought that education was the rowed heavily to rebuild them. He de­ only answer." cided to go on with earlier plans to But none of the finalists wanted the organize Rampart College, a graduate Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 LeFevre had a stroke of good fortune ter than LeFevre. Rothbard, LeFevre can be considered a when W. H. Hutt, realizing that his The only element that distinguished "Founding Father" of the contemporary professional reputation was suffering LeFevre's thought, it seemed to me, was libertarian movement. These three indi­ from association with LeFevre, asked to his odd notion of aggression, which sub­ viduals, born between 1905 and 1926, pro­ be released from his contract, which still sumed many acts that most libertarians vided many of the ideas and much of the had four years to run, "and at least one (or anyone else with a lick of common inspiration for those who broke away large obligation of the school disap­ sense) would regard as defensive. from other ideological disciplines in the peared." Alas, he was not so lucky with Suppose you are attacked on the street late 1960s and gave the term libertarian­ James J. Martin. "Bob assumed that by a thug. You can defend yourself, ism its special identity. Martin wished to cancel his contract, LeFevre argues, by trying to block with Although Rand died in 1982, her in­ too. He believed that Martin felt the your arm the knife that the assailant is fluence lives on. To this day, libertarians same way as Hutt, and would be ready preparing to stick in your gut. But if you rarely engage in discussions of political, to leave the school. Bob called him into punch him to ward him off, you are try­ philosophical or strategic issues without his office and unilaterally cancelled his ing to harm him and therefore commit­ considering what Rand had to say on the contract, without giving Martin any say ting an act of aggression. matter. .Rothbard is as active and cur­ in the matter." This bizarre notion generally elicits mudgeonish as ever, continuing to Watner has little sympathy for all sorts of responses from those first ex­ influence libertarian thinking, to add Martin's resistance to LeFevre's attempt posed to it. Suppose I were being raped, words to the libertarian vocabulary, and to bully him. "A few days later, Bob re­ a woman might ask. Does this mean I to define the issues over which libertari­ ceived a letter from. Martin informing cannot take the most effective direct ac­ ans wrangle. Rand and Rothbard ranked him that Martin was prepared to hold tion available to protect myself, a swift first and second when Liberty polled its him to the original contract. Only one kick to the cojones? Suppose I were kid­ readers about who influenced their intel­ year of the original five had gone by, so napped and tied up? Does this mean that lectual development. LeFevre ranked there were four more 21st. years in which the Why this anomaly? school would have to Why is LeFevre's influ­ pay him a salary and The only element that distinguished LeFevre's ence so low today, in provide housing. Bob thought, it seemed to me, was his odd notion of aggres­ comparison to that of tried to explain to the other libertarian Martin that financial sion, which subsumed many acts that most libertarians pioneers? reverses made it im­ (or anyone else with a lick of common sense) would re­ The reason, I am possible to honor his gard as defensive. convinced, is that contract, and probably LeFevre's influence necessary to close the was \ personal rather school. None of this than intellectual. For made any difference to Martin who in­ I could not cut the rope without commit­ the most part, his fans admire him for sisted on having his contract filled to the ting aggression against the kidnapper's his manner and his manners, his gentle­ letter." property? ness and his style. Rand and Rothbard Although Watner does not report LeFevre's strange notion of aggres­ have written intellectually powerful how much the property sold for, it must sion explains his opposition to voting: books that influence us by the sheer have been a substantial sum. It was for him, voting was inherently aggres­ force of their logic. But Rand's heavy enough to payoff the mortgage, payoff sive; it made no difference whether one Russian accent and her complete lack of Martin, pay LeFevre and his "family" voted for conscription or against it. The humor, and Rothbard's New York accent twelve years of "back wages,'~ buy first vote would violate the rights of and his sharp and often nasty wit, often LeFevre a new house in California, and those conscipted against their will; the alienate their admirers. LeFevre, in con­ re-establish Rampart College there "on a second would violate the rights of those trast, employed a silver tongue and sales­ limited basis." who actually wanted to be conscripted. man's tricks, practiced through years as LeFevre the Thinker, As I understand it, LeFevre had a a radio pitchman and religious cult lead­ quick mind and a great personal charm er, to gain his influence. His influence "How he steals!. How he spoils which somehow enabled him to handle was felt not through writing but through everything he steals! How he annoys objections. But even his admirers were personal charm. His influence today is me! But he won't annoy me any more; I generally not convinced. Many agreed limited to the memories of those who have read a few of his pages and that's with LeFevre's case against voting and were touched personally by him. enough."-Marquise de Parolignac, in political activism, but could not accept Despite the weirdness of both the book Voltaire's Candide. his opposition to self-defense, preferring and its subject, Robert LeFevre: Truth is Not Robert LeFevre long held a fascina­ to regard his radical pacifism as some aHalf-way Place is fascinating. It is more re­ tion for me, and I sought out and read sort of peculiar deviation from his essen­ vealing than it was probably intended to several of his books. What I found in tial philosophy. be, and benefits from critical reading. But them was a dull, poorly written mish­ A Waning Influence the sheer nuttiness of its subject and its mash, mostly stolen from others who wealth of unintentional humor make it Along with Ayn Rand and Murray knew how to write and to think far bet- well worth the effort. 0 60 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, by Mario Vargas Llosa, of a novelist attempting to understand translated by Alfred Mac Adam, New York: Vintage, 1986, 310 pp., $6.95. the motives of a leftist revolutionary. His protagonist, Alejandro Mayta, is an im­ poverished urban intellectual who, in 1958, attempts to start a guerrilla move­ ment in the Andes. The attempt fails, but it foreshadows more successful efforts, Against the Peruvian including that of Sendero, whose pres­ ence haunts the novel with its intima­ tions of complete political destruction. Apocalypse Twenty-five years after Mayta's failure, a write~ begins researching his life, talking to former friends and enemies to gain in­ spiration for a novelistic treatment of the Stephen Cox his ideas. Observing the ill effects of gov­ story. All the while, the new revolution­ ernment manipulation of economies all aries are increasing their power. In 1985, Alan Garda took office as over the world, he investigated and be­ Enlisting the aid of Cuban troops and President of Peru. Young (as politicians gan to advocate free-enterprise ideas planes, they advance on Cuzco and go), handsome (as politicians go), center­ even before Garda's experiments turned Lima; the government staves off immi­ left, and given to ad hoc tinkering with definitively sour. (In fact, he predicted nent defeat only by calling in American dangerous situations, Garcia was the ge­ their collapse while American· media­ Marines. neric third-world "John F. Kennedy." By e.g., The New Yorker-were still viewing Vargas's images of revolution are late 1988, Garda's political career was as them as hopeful.) He founded a move­ harrowing-and plausible. But they are dead as Jacob Marley. ment, Libertad, that gave a polemical just one element in his portrayal of the Garcia's greatest political success-an voice to the large segments of the oppression and misery of Peruvian exis­ economic "miracle" accomplished by Peruvian populace that were outraged tence, from the Andes, where human life raising wages, controlling prices, and us­ by Garcia's bank nationalization. A coali­ is a mere "animal routine" continued in ing high tariffs to make everyone buy tion of right-wing parties now stands scenes of medieval filth and ignorance, to ' Peruvian-led to astronomical inflation. ready to nominate Vargas for President the capital, where despair and cynicism Meanwhile, Garda alienated the right by of Peru. turn even the wealthiest neighborhoods nationalizing what remained of private The 1990 campaign, in which Vargas into open garbage dumps. Vargas de­ banking in Peru, and he alienated the left will probably face a Marxist rival, should scribes a political culture that has always by his failure to prohibit or punish the be one of the most dramatic intellectual been saturated with coercion and irra­ prison massacre of revolutionaries. By contests of the century, a clear-cut strug­ tionalism. Peru was once a seat of the December 17, 1988, he had become so un­ gle between philosophies of limited and Inquisition, and its methods have been popular that he was forced to resign unlimited government. The battle will be carried into the twentieth century, with from the headship of his own party. intransigently fought. Its stakes wjl1 be disastrous psychological and economic When Garcia leaves office after the the ideological destiny of..the third· effects. election of 1990 (if a military coup world-and its material destiny, too, be­ At the entrance to the Museum of the doesn't remove him before then), he will cause one can hardly imagine how the Inquisition, I see that at least another leave a nation lying in economic ruins desperate economic problems of third­ dozen old people, men, women, and and convulsed by guerrilla warfare. The world countries can be solved unless an children have joined the family in Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path"), a indigenous intellectual leadership arises rags I saw before. They constitute a Maoist group crazier than anything this that clearly understands the connection sort of grotesque royal court of tat­ side of the Khmer Rouge, harries the between freedom and prosperity. ters, grime, and scabs. As soon as Andes and terrorizes the capital. Peru is It's not clear, of course, that Vargas they see me, they stretch out their black-nailed hands and beg. Violence nearing the "apocalyptic" events envi­ will win his battle, either for .the presi­ behind me and hunger in front of sioned in Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The dency of his country or, if he is elected, me. Here, on these stairs, my country Real Life of Alejandro Mayta. And, just pos­ for its future. In both cases, there are summarized. Here, touching each sibly, Peru is also nearing that rarest of substantial odds against his success. One other, the two sides of Peruvian literary events, an author's attainment of battle, however, he has already won­ history. (109-10) the power to prevent his fictions from be­ the battle to keep his writing free from It is predictable that intellectuals coming reality. political dogmatism. Of his many novels, raised in a political culture characterized Vargas, 53, was once a leftist admirer Alejandro Mayta is the most directly rele­ by violence and tyranny should learn of Castro. He was little different, in his vant to the current political crisis, but it and adopt· the methods of violence and political sympathies, from many other is noteworthy for its br~adth of concern tyranny. Vargas draws implicit parallels members of the Latin Americ~n literary and its freedom from overt political between "the gentlemen Inquisitors, establishment, which properly regarded preaching. among whom there figured [their collab­ him as one of its brightest stars. But Vargas has written himself into the orators] the most illustrious intellectuals Vargas was too good an intellectual not plot-as an observer, not as a politi­ of the era: lawyers, professors, theologi­ to be open to the empirical falsification of dan-by structuring Mayta as the story cal orators, versifiers, writers of prose," Liberty 61 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 and the twentieth-century intellectuals characters like Mayta live only in the conditions-past, present, and possible who automatically collaborate with au­ world of fiction. One of the formative in­ future-and of some major varieties of thoritarian movements and institutions fluences on Vargas was William political character. His respect for empiri­ (106). But Mayta, as the writer recon­ Faulkner, and much of Alejandro Mayta cal fact emerges strongly in his meticu­ structs him from the memories of his ac­ works on the Faulknerian information lous re-creations of the way life is led·in quaintances, seems different from the principle: the more data one has about a the slums and suburbs and prisons of others. Most of his intellectual generation character, the more plausible stories one Lima and in the remote Andean.heights. are Stalinists; he is an eccentric can make up about him, and the less He discredits leftist ideology Oargely by Trotskyist. They want power; he wants sure one can be that any given story is presenting it), but he is able to view his action. They are bigotedly macho; he is the true one. leftist·protagonist with a personal sym­ homosexual. He is a socially marginal I think I've read everything that pathy that keeps the character interesting person who wistfully desires "to plunge came out in newspapers and maga­ and the author intellectually respectable. right into the heart of the people" (94); zines about this story, and I've Vargas refuses to play with loaded they are smug ideological conformists to talked with an infinite number of dice-unlike the Nicaraguan poet whom the word "heart" means nothing. participants and witnesses. But·the Ernesto Cardenal, whom he satirizes, in Expelled even from his seven-man more I investigate, the less I feel I a rare polemical passage, for subordinat­ revolutionary organization, Mayta takes know what really happened. ing plain truth to politics: Because, with each new fact, more to the hills with an army lieutenant, two contradictions, conjectures, myster­ He responded to the demagoguery of peasants, and a bunch of schoolkids. ies, and incongruities crop up. (139) some agitators in the audience with Thus allied he hopes to precipitate a revo­ The possibility is created that the more demagoguery than even they lution that will make peasants the owners wanted to hear. He did and said boyishly idealistic Mayta is only a "con- of their land and work- everything necessary ers the owners of their to earn the approba­ factories, that will de­ At stake in Peru's 1990 election is the ideological des­ tion and applause of stroy the nation's chok­ the most recalcitrant: tiny of the third world-and its material destiny, too, be­ there was no differ­ ing bureaucracy and ence between the eliminate social, moral, cause one can hardly imagine how the desperate Kingdom of God and and sexual prejudices, economic problems of third-world countries can be communist society; that will "abolish all in­ solved unless an indigenous intellectual leadership arises the .Church had be­ justices without inflict­ come a whore, but ing new ones" (196). that clearly understands the connection between freedom thanks to the revolu­ One of the points that and prosperity. tion it would become Vargas is making is that pure again, as it was to expect all this from a becoming in Cuba; the socialist revolution is transparently ab­ Vatican, a capitalist jecture." When the narrator finally en­ cave which had always defended the surd; only the most extreme romanticism counters a flesh-and-blood Alejandro powerful, was now the servant of the could imagine it as a practical aim. Mayta, he finds him radically different Pentagon; the fact that there was Another of his intended points is that from any Mayta he had imagined. He is only one party iIi Cuba and in the Mayta, the ineffective idealist, is lovable unidealistic, perhaps even cynical. Is he U.S.S.R. meant the elite had the task partly because he is ineffective. Ifhis plans the result of the idealist's disappoint­ of stirring up the masses, exactly as had succeeded to any degree, the conse­ ment and decay or does he represent a Christ had wanted the Church to do with the people.... quences might have been as oppressive different type of personality, a different And the final act of pure theater: as those ofthe Senderistas. psychological explanation of revolution? And a third point seems to be that waving his hands, he announced to Or perhaps the real Mayta is the one the world that the recent cyclone that who converts to capitalism without even hit Lake Nicaragua was the result of I LOVE MY COUNTRY BUT knowing it; the one who talks about con­ some ballistic experiments carried ducting a "genuine revolution" when he out by the United States. (77-80) . I FEAR MY GOVERNMENT starts a private business in prison, selling On the evidence of Alejandro Mayta, T-Shirts - $8 wholesome food and honest banking there seems little chance that Vargas will Sweatshirts - $16 (294). Vargas's narrator rejects extrava­ ever make such a ridiculous figure of Bumperstickers ­ $2 each or 4 for $5 gant plots, resists any tendency to place himself. But what, one wonders, will the Also Available: •I• Mayta's life in "the unreal world of Peruvian electorate make of literary pro­ Capitalism • Who is thrillers" (89), but in the extravagant at­ ductions like Mayta, with its challenging John Galt? • John Galt for mosphere of Peruvian politics, which is narrative method and its frankness about President. Escape the fog: Objectivism • already removed from a good many ves­ sex and politics and the nation's history? I Think: Therefore I can't be a Socialist • Silk screened with top quality Materials tiges of reality, who is to define the sort Of course, we on this side of"the equator Sizes: M,L,XL Blue or Pink of character that is the most plausible are ill-equipped to guess what may hap­ Please add $2.50 postage and handling for source of revolutionary struggle? pen to a writer of brilliance who is also a T-shirts and sweatshirts; S(J¢ for stickers For more information and quantity price list, While investigating the issue, howev­ politician. The last candidate for the send stamped, self addressed envelope to: er, Vargas supplies a virtually encyclo­ American presidency who was even a Individual Concepts pedic account of Peruvian social good writer died about 70 years ago. a Po. Box 40486, Redford, MI48240 Please allow 2 to 4 weeks for delivery. Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 The Culture ofTerrorism, by Noam Chomsky argued against his anti-imperialist views. Boston, Mass: South End Press, 1988, 269 pp., $12.00. Chomsky remained, as he always does, cool and articulate. Brran Morton, editor of soft-left Dissent magazine, then took his turn in the pages of The Nation (May 1988). Instead of attacking Chomsky outright, Morton made a distinction between the An Anarchist's Appraisal old Chomsky (good) and the new Chomsky (bad). The old Chomsky was "gentle," "measured," and "calm." The new one is "chilling," "indignant," "an­ gry." This is not, says Morton, consistent Jeffrey A. Tucker in the Middle East?, 1974, and later, The with the libertarian spirit of tolerance. Fateful Triangle, 1982). He predicted that Where have we heard ~hat before? Noam Chomsky takes seriously Lord not granting the Palestinians a homeland If there must be 'such a distinction, Acton's dictum that "official truth is not would lead Israel to expand its use of po­ the new Chomsky actually seems better. actual truth." A professor of linguistics at lice-state tactics and violence. His new work is enlightening, articulate, the Massachusetts Institute of Tech­ Chomsky continues to write and and persuasive. More than that, it has the nology, Chomsky revolutionized his dis­ speak on world affairs. He is in demand moral passion of the classical liberals and cipline. All linguistics is now regarded as to speak at American colleges and uni­ of the Old Right, which is sadly missing either pre-Chomsky or post-ehomsky. versities, but he finds his popularity from today's academic officialese. Over thirty years after his original work greatest across the borders. Such is his The result of the NPR piece and (Syntactic Structures, 1957) and his scores influence abroad that the State Nation article was a glowing essay in of other articles and books, linguists Department has sent venomous letters to Mother Jones (October, 1988) praising his must still tackle Chomsky's ideas; and foreign magazines, denouncing them for most recent work. Then, in November, they do so with both praise and scorn. publishing his articles on U.S. foreign Bill Moyers bravely aired a two-part in­ Chomsky never felt a need to confine policy. terview with Chomsky on his public tele­ his research to the bounds of his primary Chomsky's critics can be fiercest on vision show. discipline. For example, when Skinner's the left, however. Sometimes outsiders But Chomsky's articles won't soon be behaviorism became popular, Chomsky to leftist politics can forget that leftists are appearing in The New York Review of became its leading opponent, pointing prone to sell out to the state; Just as Books, as they so often did in the 1960s. out that the school was methodologically Capitol Hill libertarians went on a mad Neither will The Nation soon forgive his flawed and that its conclusions were es­ rush to become cogs in Reagan's state attacks on its editorial board. I can safely sentially totalitarian. Again, when mysti­ machinery, so the left abandoned predict that his new book on the media cism was gaining favor within the New Chomsky to stay within the narrow and American policy, Manufacturing of Left in the late-1960's, Chomsky-who bounds of "respectable opinion"-as de­ Consent (1989), will get a cold-shoulder had tremendous credibility within radi­ fined by the state. It is largely true that from American political culture. His cal circles-urged a return to reason and the Reagan era eclipsed all kinds of radi­ stinging and brilliant articles are still moral absolutes. (Some of these essays calism, including Rothbardian and largely confined to Zeta magazine, a left­ are reprinted in The Chomsky Reader, Chomskyian anarchism. As a case wing monthly of social, cultural, and ge­ 1987.) against Chomsky, leftists often point out opolitical commentary published by Chomsky was a leading anti­ that he allegedly "discredited" himself South End Press. imperialist American intellectual critic of by defending the freedom of a holocaust Yet The Culture of Terrorism has the Vietnam War. His chronicling of U.S. revisionist to write and publish. For brought Chomsky some exposure, and war crimes (which appear in American Chomsky the issue was one of civilliber­ for good reason: there is no sharper anal­ Power and the New Mandarins, 1969) ties; he has no interest in the subject. Yet ysis of how the Reagan warfare machine played a important role in leading acti­ because the subject is taboo, the issue still actually worked, how very far from true vists to civil disobedience against the causes him trouble (possibly because his "conservatism" it turned out to be, how war, a movement of unprecedented size "connection" with it is an excuse to dis­ it has spread death and terror through­ and scope in U.S. history. Under­ miss his radical foreign-policy views). out the Middle East and Central standably, as Chomsky took the media to The publication of Chomsky's The America, and how America's official cul­ task for what he saw as its willing com­ Culture of Terrorism was the catalyst to ture indulges in a willful neglect of all plicity with U.S. war-propaganda, his en­ two more attacks on his work. In an in­ such unpleasant facts. emies among the media grew. He also terview on National Public Radio (and The primary tenets of Reagan's pro­ held the intellectual establishment ac­ NPR's interviews are always flattering, gram, says Chomsky, are an "increase in countable for its silence and opportun­ allowing guests to answer slow pitches the state sector of the economy, and ism. To this day, he says, "I cannot abide from a sympathetic interviewer) the al­ growth of state power in general" and them." In the seventies, he committed leged liberals and doves at NPR relent­ "an 'activist' foreign policy." The growth yet another sin by breaking the silence lessly grilled him, interrupted him, of the state sector came through !J1e mili­ on the history and policies ofIsrael (Peace attacked his alleged extremism, and tarization and cartelization of U.S. indus..

Liberty 63 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 t~ which have siphoned off resources "mistaken" but never ill-intentioned. evaluate them in terms of the standards from the consumer market. An "activist" Chomsky will have none of it. He shows the U.S. government says it requires foreign policy is a code-word for "inter­ that U.S. foreign policy has been success­ from other governments. vention, subversion, aggression, interna­ ful at doing exactly what it was intended What use is this book for libertarians? tional terrorism, and general gangsterism to do: expand the U.S. empire through It is the perfect antidote for those who and lawlessness." whatever means. see nothing wrong with an administra­ Under the Reagan administration's The Culture of Terrorism contains a tion that ran a global network of terror management and financing, the Central dizzying array of footnotes on the sourc­ and death, just because it reduced margi­ American death toll reached over 50,000 es of Chomsky's information. Most of his nal taxes rates somewhat. Thanks to in...EI Salvador and close to 100,000 in sources are publicly available. He merely Chomsky, such views cannot claim Guatemala. Most of these were "not ordi­ presents the facts and asks the reader to ignorance as an excuse. 0 nary killings," says Chomsky, "but rath­ er Pol Pot-style atrocities, with extensive torture, rape, mutilation, 'disappear­ Libertarianism: Fallacies and Follies, by Robert James Bidinotto ance,' and similar measures to ensure' Newcastle, Penn: Broadsheet Publishers, no date, 23 pp., $4.50 that the population would be properly traumatized." At home, Reagan created two government disinformation agen­ cies-Operation Truth and the Office of Public Diplomacy-to cover the terror with distortions and lies and to insure Libertarianism that the river of blood flowed with virtu­ ally no acknowledgment from the and Diversity American electorate. Only a depraved system of ethics would advocate the intentional torture and killing of innocent people. Yet the Charles Curley thought them a gaggle of self­ U.S. guns in Central America ·were aggrandizing politicians. aimed at what the State Department The question has come up again: Rand was quite clear that she was es­ called "soft tariets," that is, innocent ci­ What Is Libertarianism? Sigh. The ques­ pousing a complete philosophy. When vilians. The CIA set up a system which tion was precipitated by an essay written she spoke to a Random House salesman made the effectiveness of the policy de­ by Mr Robert James Bidinotto entitled prior to the launch of Atlas Shrugged, she pendent on an escalation of terror. Since Libertarianism: Fallacies and Follies. It is was asked to sum up her philosophy the goal is the subjugation of the civilian "while standing on one foot." Her sum­ population, it. makes· sense to bomb worth reading, in spite of the fact that a more accurate title would be: Objectivism mary: "Metaphysics-objective reality; health clinics, schools, and churches rath­ Epistemology-reason; Ethics-self­ er than military installations. The U.S. and Libertarianism: Fallacies and Follies. The chief problem is Bidinotto's ig­ interest; Politics--capitalism." media treat this with silence, as Libertarianism, on the other hand, is norance. He appears to equate the Chomsky shows. For example, the media not a philosophy. It is a concept, a core Libertarian Party with libertarianism. were outraged when the Nicaraguan rule. It is not even an ethic, although eth­ The equation is invalid. Most libertarians government imposed a state of siege, but ics may call upon that rule. At most, li­ are not members of the LP; some oppose no one said a word when the U.S.-client bertarianism is that rule, with a government of EI Salvador renewed its it vociferously. He accuses the libertarian systematic exploration of its implications perpetual state of siege two days later. In movement of concentrating on politick­ for individuals and society. EI Salvador, says Chomsky, American ing, an accusation properly leveled only Libertarianism, by itself, does not ad­ "media coverage and outrage is inverse­ at a small minority of the libertarian dress metaphysics or epistemology at all! ly related to the extent of atrocities, movement: the Libertarian Party and the It has implications for ethics and politics, though directly related to U.S. govern­ oxymoronically named Libertarian but that is all. It is an ideology, like ment priorities." Republican Organizing Committee. Marxism, since it makes prescriptions in In the face of this, and much more, Though one may argue that the act of the area of politics (but not, like there is something which most institu­ running for government office is a viola­ Marxism, economics). Libertarian tions of American culture agree on: while tion of the libertarian rule, it is grossly Christians may wish to address meta­ the U$. government's policies may not unfair to the majority of libertarians to physics or epistemology, but they must always be successful in promoting free­ hold them all guilty of this. do so from the point of view of the un­ dom and democracy, they are all, at least, Bidinotto confuses libertarianism derlying philosophy they bring to certainly intended to do so. Chomsky with Objectivism. They are not identical, libertarianism. gathers scores of quotations from liberal a point Ms Rand made over and over and left-wing pundits and publications again. Rand rejected the libertarian label The libertarian Rule to show how they fit squarely within the as an effort by libertarians to hitch-hike The rule that defines libertarianism is "respectable bounds of opinion" by on her achievements. She also refused to easily stated: branding American foreign policy as endorse the Libertarian· Party. She Whatever may be open to disagree- 64 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 ment, there is one act of evil that may more prevailing chaos there is in the are the buy and sell quotes for Constants. not, the act that no man may commit state. May you walk upon the private road? against others and no man may sanc­ The greater the number of statutes, the Certainly, the filthy capitalist smiles, tion or forgive. So long as men desire greater the number of thieves and how else will you get to the. shops and to live together, no man may ini­ brigands. businesses that make up the neighbor­ tiate-do you hear me? no man may start-the use of physical force Diversity hood association. Why else would we against others. -Ayn Rand, Atlas maintain it? The capitalist, by the bye, is Among the implications of the liber­ literally filthy; his personal habits are his Shrugged [emphasis in original] tarian rule is a vast pluralism: diversity. Perhaps more to the point of this dis­ own business. You are right, he is not a There are some very narrow-minded rich capitalist. cussion is the blurb on the mailing cover people out there who see libertarianism of APAlogia: In the other direction, perhaps a com­ as meaning their own particular philoso- mune of organic farmers. With no subsi­ A LIBERTARIAN is a person who be­ .phy spread throughout the land. dies to their agribusiness competitors, lieves that no one has the right, un­ A nation of Dagny Taggarts and John der any circumstances, to initiate the organic farmers do quite well: many GaIts would be boring! How do I know? people will pay a premium for quality force against another hwnan being, Look at the spawn of incompetent pseu- or to advocate or even if they aren't delegate its initia­ "health nuts." See their tion. Those who act Libertarianism is not a failure of theory or of nerve. outdoor restaurant, consistently with where they're serving this principle are Exactly the opposite: it requires considerabl: nerve .to lunch to the manin cam­ Libertarians, wheth­ want to live in a society in which one's baSIC theorIes mies, beret and combat er they realize it or on life, the universe and everything, are constantly boots? not. Those who fail Beyond that is the lo­ to act consistently open to challenge. with it are not cal Golf and Rifle Club. Ubertarians, re- The gun range is in the middle of the property, gardless of what do-randroids we call yuppies: spoilt they may claim." [Emphasis in where only fellow club members will be original] brats, interested solely in their own ca­ put out by the occasional private mortar reers and in getting as rich as they can. A You don't have to be an Objectivist to practice. Sorry, tactical nukes are not al­ yuppie will do almost anything for "per­ lowed by club rules. You probably won't adopt the rule of libertarianism. The sonal achievement," to advance his, her, works of Lev Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, find the local Buddhists at the Sunday or its career. Yuppies are too incompe­ Survival game. ("Replace your divots.") Dorothy Day and others echo a Christian tent to be heroic, too narrow-minded to version: "Thou Shalt Not Initiate Force." The noise disturbs their "wa." be anything more than paper pushers, The one rule you will find Ceremonial magicians echo Aleister bean counters, or computer salesthings, Crowley's version, 11And 'Ye harm none,' throughout such a society is very simple: and too materialistic to see the aesthetic no one initiates the use of force. do what thou wilt shall be the whole of beauty of a tree. These are the people the law." Crowley died in 1947, ten years Everything else is open to discussion, who read Ms Rand twenty years ago, and is often discussed. Such discussion is before Atlas Shrugged was published. and flunked the final exam: life. Pagan libertarians continue to exist, hav­ inevitable when people are free to think The ones who read Ms Rand and as they may. The answer to "Think as I ing learnt something from being on the passed the final exam are the ones who wrong end of the Inquisition. tell you" is "Goodbye and have a nice think for themselves. These are the peo­ life." Communards are left anarchists or syn­ ple who learned a lot from Ms Rand, dicalists. Their writers, too, have learnt who picked up her core message: live for The Problem with Bidinotto to oppose the initiation of force. Josiah yourself, and think for yourself. There Warren, among the American anarchists, In his essay, Mr Bidinotto presents aren't too many of them (even Ms Rand five arguments against libertarianism: comes to mind. One can find libertarian ultimately flunked the latter test), and 1) That '1ibertarianism," as a concept, is ideas and concepts in almost every major you don't necessarily know one when religion, Marxism being a rather obvious nebulous and vague; that it has been left you see one. so deliberately-first, to avoid any per­ exception. A truly libertarian society will be a Perhaps the first libertarian was Lao sonal philosophical requirements, and pluralistic one. Across the (private) street second, so as not to shatter the illusion (604-524 Tse B.C.): from the Catholic church offering the of a libertarian coalition ... He who by Tao purposes to help the ruler of Latin Mass may be a pagan field with rit­ Libertarianism is not vague. The rule men uals in the nude or clothed, as preferred. that defines libertarianism, which I quot­ Will oppose all conquest by force of arms. Down that street, maintained by a neigh­ ed above, and Mr Bidinotto complains li­ Lao Tse's understanding of the eco­ borhood association and patrolled by a bertarians stole from Ms Rand, is not nomic effects of government predates rent-a-cop, you might find a gold­ vague. Mises somewhat: standard bank issuing 100% reserve If he finds that vague or nebulous, The more prohibitions there are, the poorer notes printed by an artists' syndicate. then Mr Bidinotto can't read. It is not a the people become. Across the street, an openly stated frac­ full philosophic system, nor does it need The more sharp weapons there are, the tional reserve bank. Prominently posted to be. None, save Mr Bidinotto, perhaps,

Liberty 65 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989 claims that it is. tiate force over our disagreements" is Libertarianism is certainly not an 2) [T]hat the focus on liberty, instead of the proper form of such an organiza­ aphilosophic movement. Getting some­ on its philosophical roots, by-passes the tion's manifesto. one to make conscious the libertarian rule real and decisive ideological battle in Here-as Mr Bidinotto points out­ in that person's philosophical terms re­ the world today ... both the Libertarian Party and the quires a considerable application of phi­ Translation: liberty is not as important Nathaniel Branden Institute failed miser­ losophy, and a thorough knowledge of a as your conversion to my ideology. What ably. Aside from the label in the former great deal of different philosophies. How Mr Bidinotto is saying here is that it is (stolen, typical of politicians), neither does one bring out an appreciation of the not sufficient to be free to pursue one's" was libertarian for long, if ever. These libertarian rule in a Muslim without a own goals; one must also accept the par­ examples prove, not that libertarianism thorough grounding in Islam? By con­ ticular philosophy which, as it happens, won't work, but that there is justice in verting the Muslim to Objectivism? Not he espouses. He may-or may not-be the universe. bloody likely! correct, but that is a different issue. Ifthe On the contrary, a diverse, pluralistic Nor is it necessary that an aphilosoph­ libertarian rule permits discussion and libertarian movement can appeal to far ical movement ignore the moral ramifica­ variety, then of necessity libertarianism more people than a narrow one tions of the individual. Silicon Valley permits different ways of life. dependent on one particular philosophy. businesses run by yuppies are as aphilo­ 3) [T]hat libertarianism, as an ideological A libertarian Bahai can talk to another sophical institutions as ever you are like­ coalition, entails the untenable collabo­ Bahai far more readily than an ly to find, yet they are forced by market ration of logically opposing factions­ Objectivist could talk to a Bahai. For one pressures to take into account the moral with disastrous consequences ... [em­ thing, the Bahai need only seek the other ramifications of individualism. I don't phasis in original] one's agreement not to initiate force. work for the ones that don't. What Mr Bidinotto sees as a fatal Contrast that with the Objectivist's ap­ Contrary to Mr Bidinotto, libertarian­ flaw is actually libertarianism's great parent need to change his victim's entire ism is not a failure of theory or of nerve. virtue. Because it "has only one rule, be­ world view. Exactly the opposite: it requires consider­ cause it permits all things except the ini­ 4) [Tlhat libertarianism, in by-passing able nerve to want to live in a society in tiation of force, because it is nothing but epistemology, has no objective ground­ which one's basic theories on life, the uni­ a guarantee of diversity, libertarianism ing for its most basic concepts, such as verse and everything, are constantly open can gather in a coalition of disparate mi­ "rights" or "justice"-also with disas­ to challenge. It requires considerable norities: Buddhists, science fiction fans, trous consequences ... nerve to want to live in a society in which Taoists, Ghu knows what else. Perhaps As I have tried to make clear, liber­ philosophic discussion is limited only by libertarians should adopt a pagan aphor­ tarianism does not "by-pass" anything, exhaustion, or the supply of beer, instead ism: "If they come for me in the night, least of all epistemology. Rather, liber­ of by ridicule or force or psychological they'll come for you in the morning." tarianism requires that one bring one's Randroids will, mercifully, always be own epistemology to the table when one games. It requires considerable nerve to want to live in a world in which everyone a small minority. Perhaps they should is considering the libertarian rule. consider this coalition as a means to Libertarianism requires that one have has his own theory as to what is right, their own future safety. Which would one's own thought-out position. It does and in· which that theory may be put to you prefer to have as a neighbor, Mr not require that one accept, lock, stock the only test that counts: reality. Not to Bidinotto: a libertarian Taoist, or a yup­ and Inquisition, someone else's canned the words in some book, nor to abstract pieIRS agent? philosophy. More important, it requires ideas on how the universe ought to pro­ As to the allegation of untenability, that one be willing to learn enough ceed, but to reality itself: how the uni­ so long as the implications of the liber­ about someone else's philosophy to un­ verse does proceed. And certainly not to tarian rule are carried out in a coalition derstand his approach" to the libertarian the coward's ultimate argument, force. organization, the organization is tenable, rule. One wonders: is Mr Bidinotto will­ Nor to his penultimate argument, perhaps even comfortable (at least to ing to undertake this task? intimidation. If it requires nerve to want to live in those of us who cherish diversity). In a 5) [T]hat libertarianism, as an aphilosoph­ libertarian organization, one does not ical movement, must evade the moral such a society, consider the cowardice of speak for anyone else on any subject ex­ ramifications of individualism in struc­ someone who thinks that a libertarian so­ cept the libertarian rule. "I'm an X, she's twing its organizations and cooperative ciety can be achieved only if we all think a Y, he's a Z. But we all agree not to ini- projects. as he does. a Moving? lIThe Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult" Be sure to leave a Paper Trail... by Murray N. Rothbard Please notify us at least 4 weeks in advance. Be sure to in.. Though Prof. Rothbard wrote this provocative monograph clude both your old address (as it appears on your mailing years ago, it has only recently been published. For your copy, label) and your new address, including your zip code. please send $4.00 to: Send address changes to: Liberty Publishing POBox 1167 Liberty, Circulation Department, Port Townsend, WA 98368 PO Box 1167, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Thank you. 66 Liberty Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989

Out, Houghton Mifflin, 1986) that de­ scribes her unusual upbringing and de­ velopment in England but mostly relates her trips to West Africa and the writing of her books about those experiences. Booknotes Mary Kingsley came from a we11­ known family. Her uncle was the novelist Charles Kingsley and her father George Kingsley a well-known physician and travel writer. It was also a family of ec­ blockade and defeat of Cornwallis at Start with a Bang centrics. One day Mary's mother took to Yorktown. BarbaraTuchman is a successful populizer her sick bed and spent the remainder of of both recent and past history, and her Although some critics have contended her life there, leaving to five-year-old most recent book, First Salute: A New that Tuchman's account overstates the im­ Mary the resposibility for managing the View of the American Revolution (Alfred portance of the naval side of the household. A. Knopf, 347 pp., $22.95) sheds consider­ Revolution and of European military and Her family moved to Cambridge as a able light on the little-known but impor­ financial aid to the Americans, she convenience for her brother's education. tant side of the American Revolution. presents a compelling case for at least giv­ Apparently, her father believed that edu­ The title refers to the symbolic event ing these factors equal weight with cation was a luxury not wasted on wom­ on November 16, 1776, when the trade­ others. en: Mary received no formal education at and-smuggling oriented governor of St. Most surprising is the account of how all, not even tutoring. Mary made the Eustatius-a small but prosperous Dutch poorly the British navy performed. most of her opportunities, educating her­ outpost in the West Indies-took it upon Tuchman contends that it was saddled self in her father's library and making himself to order a full naval battery salute with a corrupt promotion system and several lasting friends among the intellec­ in response to the welcoming salute from poor admiralship (the execution of an ad­ tual community at Cambridge, all the the U.S. Navy brigantine Andrew Doria, miral, decades earlier, for losing a sea bat­ while caring for the mother who had re­ acknowledging the presence of a vessel of tle he had no hope of winning partly fused to move from her bedroom. a sovereign power. This exchange of pro­ explains this). Fierce Whig political oppo­ Mary's freedom came with the death tocol was the first official European recog­ sition to George Ill's heavy-handed treat­ of her parents within three months of nition of the revolutionary U.S. regime as ment of the rebellion also played a critical each other when Mary was thirty. Ten a legitimate and rightful government. role. months later, she set out on her first voy­ The governor, Johannes de Graaff, act­ Tuchman describes how the rigid age to West Africa. ed solely on his own authority. He was in IIRules of Engagement," the bible for Kingsley was no leisurely tourist: she sympathy with the revolution, no doubt English naval warfare, actually hindered prepared for her voyage by studying the anticipating the huge profits to be gained British naval success in those chaotic bat­ fields of fetish and fish biology, and gath­ by running embargoed merchandise to tles. The French had better schooled and ered a substantial collection of scientifical­ and from the American rebels. De Graaff, trained seamen and employed a beter na­ ly valuable specimens during her an otherwise unsung hero of the val strategy-namely, avoid fighting if at voyages. But it is her study of native cul­ Revolution, is honored only by a portrait all possible. tures and observations that are of greater hanging in the New Hampshire state capi­ Tuchman's emphasis' on the sheer interest today. tol. The government in Holland, in the luck of the Americans and French and on She advocated a remarkably tolerant, wake of strong British protests over the the extravagant leadership failures of the laissez faire attitude toward African socie­ British high command may be a bit over­ incident, repudiated his action. ty. She believed, for example, that the done, but it does reinforce the axiom that As Tuchman points out, the Dutch most benign approach to local cultures wars are more often lost than won. -MH was trade, and argued that local social eventually sided with the Americans. The structures and judicial systems should be British successfully invaded St. Eustatius A Liberal in Africa - "There is left alone, with a separate judicial system and captured de Graaff, but ended up los­ something reasonable about trade to all for Europeans traders, and argued ing both the island and the war. Years lat­ men, and you see the advantage of it is against hut taxes on the native. Frank of­ erde Graaff-surely a de facto libertarian that when you first appear among people ten seems mystified by her views, but if there ever was one-died a happy and who have never seen anything like you they are perfectly understandable in prosperous merchant. before, they naturally regard you as a terms of the liberal view of her time. The focus of the book is three-fold: the devil; but when you want to buy or sell Kingsley was an extraordinarily sensi­ early European intrigue and motivations with them, they recognize there is some­ tive observer, remarkably free from the to tacitly support the Americans-largely thing human and reasonable about you." cultural superiority exhibited by many for historical and mercantile reasons in­ No, those are not the words of an Europeans who ventured into the IIdark volving the lucrative West Indies sugar economist. It is'the observation of a self­ continent." trade; the machinations and politics of the educated Victorian woman whose dream Imagine a gentlemen of inky com­ Royal Navy, which saddled the British was travel to West Africa and who ful­ plexion, mainly dressed in red and with inept, corrupt and half-hearted lead­ filled that dream in three remarkable voy­ white paint, human teeth, and leop­ ership; and the final diplomatic and naval ages. Her life has been detailed in a new ard tails and not too many of them, breakthroughs that led to the successful biography by Katherine Frank (A Voyager suddenly arriving in a village herea-

Liberty 67 Volume 2, Number 4 March 1989

bouts. After the first thrill of excite­ against that part of my personal cultural I hasten to add here that Abbott ment his appearance gave passed background. She writes: points out very clearly that much of the away, and he was found anxious to It is no mystery that fundamental­ original spirit of personal freedom has of sell something, anything, say bootlac­ ism sprang up and flourished in course deteriorated in the South over the es, he would be taken much more America-though few Baptists to­ decades, and that the descendants of calmly than ifhe showed no desire to day might like to acknowledge their these rebels against authority have in do business at all. radical heritage. What the Baptists many cases recreated the conditions their This is the story of a woman who had were, in fact, was the first counter­ ancestors risked everything to escape been brought up in a unusual manner and culture in America. No hippie in the from. had no fear of leading an unusuallife, in 1960s ever aroused more wrath The book is a good read for many fact embraced it. The book presents a fas­ among the righteous-violent, overt other reasons. If you have Southern roots wrath-than the Baptists did in the cinating picture not only of Mary yourself, or would simply like to get a eighteenth century. Among all Kingsley but also of West Africa in the better handle on what Scarlett O'Hara and 1890's. -KRB American dissenters they have the oldest pedigree and certainly one of Daisy Mae and Tallulah Bankhead and the most honorable. The founder of Minnie Pearl are really all about, you can't Southern Women -Isuppose that the Baptist church in America was make a better start than Womenfolks. Shirley Abbott is a feminist. That's a word that celebrated libertarian of our -RFM I like to avoid, because it means so many schoolbooks, Roger Williams ... different things. But Shirley Abbott tran­ scends feminism in Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South (Ticknor and Fields, 1983). Anybody born or raised south of Highway 40 will find something familiar t=s~11 1.:;;;1 in this book. Abbott neither wallows in =C=l=as=s;;;;:;if=ie=d=A=d=v=e=rt=is=e=m=e=n nor denounces the hillbilly mystique, but Classified Advertising is available for $0.25 per word, plus $1.00 per insertion. 10% off: gives us an enlightened insider's point of six or more insertions. Payment must accompany order. view on cultural elements from vocabu­ lary to gender relationships to religion. There are many passages in Books Periodicals Womenfolks of particular interest to liber­ Did you know the real Bob LeFevre and Bigger Print now in The (Libertarian) tarians. For example,·she writes about the what he stood for? Read Truth Is Not a Connection, open-forum magazine since Scotch-Irish ancestors of today's Half-Way Place (236 ppb, $14.95 postpaid) 1968. Subscribers may insert two pages/ Southerners and hillbillies: and The Voluntaryist newsletter (free sam­ issues free, unedited. Lots of stimulating Like the blacks, substantial numbers ple copy, 6 issues/$15). Both $25. Box 1275L, conversation. Eight issues (one year) $16. of whom were also being unloaded Gramling, SC 29348 Strauss, Box 2202, Catharpin, VA 22018. from ships' holds at about this time, Publish Your Book! - Join our success­ FBI Spying on Libertarians - and oth­ the Scotch-Irish were a people apart. ful authors. All subjects invited. Publicity, er news about the libertarian movement that But unlike the blacks, they had a advertising, beautiful books. Send for fact­ you just won't find anywhere else. Colorful, choice about where to go next. They filled booklet and free manuscript report. monthly tabloid American Libertarian edited did not linger in the ports or along Carlton Press, Dept. L2, 11 West 32 Street, by Mike Holmes. $20 per year, $38 for two the shoreline but scuttled immediate­ New York 10001 years for first class mail delivery (outside ly away into the backwoods like North America add $5 per order). American caged bears suddenly set loose on Imagine Freedom from Governments and Libertarian, Dept. LI0 21715 Park Brook shore, making their way into a terri­ Churches. stormy MON, editor. 10th Drive, Katy, TX 77450. fying and savage wilderness where Anniversary, Revised Edition: illustrated, controversial. 188 pp. $8, foreign $10. Living Free newsletter discusses practical no houses or churches or trading methods to increase personal freedom, in­ posts or friends stood ready for Libertarian Library, Box 24269-H, Denver, CO 80224. cluding self-reliance, alternative lifestyles, them-nobody except the Tuscaroras guerilla capitalism, nomadism, ocean free­ and the Catawbas and the Be Free! is new book to protect your free­ dom. Lively, unique. $8.00 for 6 issues, sam­ Cherokees-no laws, no courts, no dom/assets/income against government ple $1.00. Box 29-LB, Hiler Branch, Buffalo, vestige of civil government. There through tax haven trusts. Free information. NY 14223. are eyewitness accounts of them Asset Haven Association, PO Box 71, A-5027 landing in America and setting off Salzburg, Austria. Panarchy-Choose your own government. from the docks the same day, in open UItimate Libertarianism INewsletter. $6.00 boats upriver into the frozen forest, per year-Sample $2.00. LeGrand E. Day, Literature Editor, Panarchy Dialectic, Box 7663-L, Van miles away from Charleston. They Free, information on civil liberties, cases Nuys, California 91409. went with a strong resolve that must you never heard about from usual sources, . have been half insane. write to Society, PO Box 23321, Santa liThe best state LP newsletter around! In short, a bunch of instinctive anar­ Barbara, CA 93121. Attractive, amusing, thoughtful, and well cho-capitalists. Further on, she gives us a Libertarian Anti-Abortion arguments: written."-says C. A.. Arthur about The revisionist history of fundamentalist $3.00. (Information only: SASE) Libertarians Trout in the Milk, the newsletter of the Christianity that led me to rethink some for Life, 13424 Hathaway Drive, #22, Libertarian Party of Indiana. One year: $8 donation. PO Box 3108, West Lafayette, IN of my enlightened agnostic gut-reactions Wheaton, MD 20906. 47906 68 Liberty Notes on Contributors

Chester Alan Arthur is Liberty's political Dianne Kresich is a freelance artist and a re­ correspondent. search assistant at the Laissez-Faire Institute in "Baloo" is the nom de plume of Rex F. May, Tempe, Arizona. whose cartoons appear in numerous periodicals. Allan Levite is the manager of a microcomputer Kathleen Bradford is a former basketball player distributorship in Dallas. His articles have ap­ who looks down on most men. peared in Reason and in The Freeman. Stephen Cox, a senior editor of Liberty, is Tibor R. Machan teaches philosophy at Auburn Associate Professor of Literature, University of University, Alabama, and is the editor of Reason California, San Diego. Papers. Charles Curley resides in the People's Republic Bob Orlin lives in southern Oregon, where his of Santa Cruz, where the number two outdoor sport is building or remodeling one's home with­ "Burons" are regularly featured in a local paper. out a permit. Murray N. Rothbard, a senior editor of Liberty, is M. H. Endres is a jack-of-many-trades, one of S. J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics at which is writing. He lives in paradise (viz. MauD. the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and Vice President for Academic Affairs of the Ludwig von Jeffrey Friedman is editor of Critical Review, a Mises Institute. quarterly journal of libertarian thought and criti­ cism. He was national director of Students for John Semmens is an economics instructor at Clark and Students for a Libertarian Society. Phoenix College and Senior Market Analyst for the Mike Holmes, a contributing editor to Liberty, is Transportation and Planning Division of the also editor of American Libertarian, a monthly Arizona Department of Transportation. newspaper. David Ramsay Steele, a senior editor of Liberty, Daniel M. Karlan is a computer programmer, a is editorial director of the General Books Division Life Member of the Nature Conservancy, and of Open Court Publishing Company. Chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party. Jeffrey A. Tucker is managing editor of The Free Michael 1. Krauss, a Professor of Law at George Market, the monthly publication of the Ludwig von Mason University, is a dual citizen of the United Mises Institute. States and Canada, and until 1987 was Associate Professor at the Universite de Sherbrooke (Quebec) Ethan O. Waters is a lover of privacy and a con­ Law School. noisseur of the American booboisie.

Coming in the Next Issue of Liberty ... "Man, Nature, and State" Karl Hess, Jr, reconsiders man's place in nature in light of possible ecological catastrophe. Is there a place for individual liberty in our future? Hess, an "ecologist by training and inclination," believes that the answer to this question is Yes, because diversity is crucial to the integ­ rity of ecosystems, and liberty and private property insures diversity better than any other poli~ical system. "A Critique of Public Choice" Though Murray Rothbard sees considerable value in the approach of the "Public Choice" school of political economy, he has been able to restrain his enthusiasm. He notes that many of the school's most important insights have been staple to the libertarian movement for nearly a century, and some of their leading ideas are problematic, to say the least. "Garnes and Rights" Stephen Boydstun explains how recent work on the theory of games has shed light on the nature of rights ... and he isn't playing around: game theory not only can help us under­ stand the problems of rights-theory, it can help lead to solutions. U.S.A. Boston One reason that more than 300/0 of passenger trains in the U.S. Demonstration of how the government of an advanced nation arrive at their destination late, as reported by the Detroit News: treats the issue of race, in sharp contrast to South Africa and Nazi Ger­ Amtrak, the government owned intercity railroad passenger service, many, which investigate the racial background of applicants for jobs, as reports that it keeps passengers under surveillance who "arrive at the reported by the Associated Press: train station in a taxicab," and report them to law enforcement authori­ Philip and Paul Malone have been suspended from their jobs as fire­ ties as suspected drug dealers. fighters in Boston, pending a decision by the Supreme Judicial Court. At issue is whether Messrs. Malone qualify as blacks and therefore Great Britain qualify for their positions. In addition, the racial backgrounds of36 oth­ Advance in rail scheduling, as developed by British Rail, the er firefighters have been investigated, and eleven others face hearings government owned rail passenger service, as reported in the Seattle to determine their race. Times: British Rail refused to include its 10:59 a.m. train from the Liver­ Washington, D.C. pool Street Station to Ipswich in its published timetable. "If we don't put it on the timetable," a BR spokesman explained, "people won't trav­ Evidence of how the IRS encourages the free flow of·· ideas el on it. Then we can cancel it if there is no demand." about our tax system, as reported in The WallStlournal: Prof Richard L. Doernberg was invited to deliver the keynote Washington, D.C. speech on "Change and Complexity as Barriers to Taxpayer Compli­ How the Supreme Court protects the right to a fair trial by a jury ance" at the Internal Revenue Service's sixth annual research confer­ ofone's peers, as reported by The Wall Street Journal: ence. After reading a draft of his remarks, the IRS requested he delete a The Supreme Court upheld a guilty verdict in a mail-fraud case, discussion of the relationship between changes in tax law and large even though some of the jurors admitted drinking and taking drugs dur­ gifts from lobbyists to prominent Members of Congress, specifically ing the trial and often falling asleep in the afternoons. Two jurors con­ Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Dole, Dan Rostenkowski and Bob Packwood. ceded that their judgment may have been impaired, raising a question Prof Doernberg refused, so the IRS "disinvited" him. The IRS ex­ about what they might have decided if sober. plained that the Service was not attempting to "censor" his remarks, but that some of the conclusions he drew were "unsupported." Wheeling, W.Va. Latest advance in the War on Drugs, as proposed in the Metrop­ LeGrande, Ore. olis of West Virginia, as reported in the Houston Post: Latest advance in political science at the county level, as report­ City Councilman John Carenbauer called for passage of a federal ed in The Skeptical /fUJuirer: law to increase the penalties for drug use and drunk driving. Conceding The Union County Commission appointed Jenny Nicholson to the that his proposal "may seem a little radical," Councilman Carenbauer newly-created position of "County Astrologer" so that she could advise proposed that suspects who test positive for drugs or alcohol be held in­ them the most propitious time to apply for "federal and state grants." communicado in special holding tanks and "taken outside and shot the following morning." The People's Republic ofChina Washington, DC The progressive way that family planning is encouraged in the Man does not live on bread alone, and neither does the President Socialist Paradise, as reported by The Wall St Journal: of the United States, as reported by the esteemed newsweekly News­ The fine for having a second child is now $1,000, approximately week: four times the per capita national income, and "Officials are adopting The Reagan White House has devoured approximately 12 tons of new 'persuasion tactics,' such as cutting off water and electricity to jellybeans, or an average of approximately 8.3 lbs per day during its families who refuse to practice birth control." tenure. New York Quebec, P. Q. Good news for those who argue that government deficits do not The progressive way that family planning is encouraged in La matter, as reported by The Wall Street Journal: Belle Province, as reported by The Wall St Journal: Only 45% of high school students could identify a government defi­ The government of Quebec announced that it would pay a cash bo­ cit as "government spending in excess of revenue" on a multiple choice nus of $500 for the birth of the first and second child of any woman in test given to 8,205 high school students nationwide. Quebec, plus $3000 per each for subsequent children. These bonuses are in addition to the $29.64 permonth for each of the first two children Fort Worth, Texas and $91.99 per month for each subsequent child that the Federal and Evidence that police in Texas will no longer tolerate open dis­ Provincial governments pay to help defray the expenses ofchild raising. plays of Christianity, as reported in the Houston Post: The province is concerned that its mostly French-speaking popula­ Rev. W. N. Otwell was arrested for giving away sandwiches to the tion might decline from its current level. "1 cannot, as leader of Que­ homeless in a downtown park. He was charged with "operating a tem­ bec's francophones, be impassive and indifferent in the face of a situa­ porary food establishment without a permit," an offense which carries a tion that could become serious within several decades," said Robert fine of up to $1,000. Bourassa, Premier of Quebec. 70 Liberty Study this

The Ludwig von Mises Institute's nomics. There will also be a seminar O. ~ Alford III Center presents the su er on effective writing. ultimate Austrian economics week. The "Mises University" includes At Stanford University in Palo Alto, world-class teaching; dormitory California, from July 8-15, 1989, a housing; three excellent meals a day; full Misesian department will teach study materials; library privileges under the direction of the leading at the (4.5 million volumes); extensive Austrian economist in the world, cultural, recreational, and athletic Professor Murray N. Rothbard. facilities; and a magnificent climate. The normal fee is $695; Students will be able to "Ludwig students are $100. Some "specialize" and pro­ full scholarships and travel grams will be available at grants are available. the introductory, inter­ fur more information, mediate, and advanced von Mises write the Ludwig von levels. The 37 areas to be Mises Institute, Auburn covered range from the University, Auburn, Ala­ .history of thought to the bama 36849, (205) future of Austrian eco- niversi~" U 826-2500.

FACULTY Murray N. Rothbard, Chainnan University of Nevada, Las Vegas Robert Batemarco Roger Garrison Hans-Hennann Hoppe George Selgin Marymount College Auburn University University of Nevada, Las Vegas University of Hong Kong Walter Block David Gordon Sheldon Richman Mark Skousen Fraser Institute Ludwig von Mises Institute Institute for Humane Studies Rollins College Williamson Evers Jeffrey Herbener Joseph Salerno Deborah Walker Hoover Institution Washington and Jefferson College Pace University Loyola University ~~G ~~ INSTITUTE

Auburn University • Auburn, Alabama 36849 • (205) 826-2500 1"'""".n-.n-".n-""".n-""".n-,.n-""".n-".n-"""",,,/,,,,,,,LAt'"".n-"",.n-"""""""""""""A9".n-".n-",.n-"","""A1CJ) CJ) CJ) CJ) I rorororo I The Back I[~~~

I ' I August 1987 (Vol. 1, No.1): $4.00 ."Ayn Rand: Still Controversial After All These Years," I I:I ."The Films of Ayn Rand," by StephenCox,essays by David Ramsay Steele and David M. Brown Tibor Machan Plus The Liberty Poll; Also: reviews and articles by Stephen I' I ."The Rise of the Statism," by Murray N. Rothbard Cox, Murray Rothbard, David Ramsay Steele, and others; (J) (J) (J) (J) I Plus reviews and articles by Ethan Waters, Mike Holmes, and an interview with L. Neil Smith. (80 pages) I~ ~ ~. ~ I William P. Moulton, Michael Townshend and others; and 0 0 0 0 I a short story by Franklin Sanders. (48 pages) September 1988 (Vol. 2, No.1): $5.50 I:J ::J :J :J I December 1987 (Vol. 1, No.3): $3.00 ."Scrooge McDuck and His Creator," by Phillip Salin 0. 0. Q. 0. ./lLibertyand Ecology/' by John Hospers 0 0 0 0 I2 ."Easy Living in the Bahamas," by Mark Skousen _ 2 ."The Ultimate Justification of the Private Property Ethis:," 0 0 0 0 I ./lLibertarians in a State Run World," by Murray N. Roth- I bard by Hans-Hermann Hoppe ~ ~ ~ ~ I Plus reviews and articles by Douglas Casey, David Fried~ I ./lThe Most Unforgettable Libertarian I Ever Knew," by , man, Karl Hess, Sandy Shaw, William Moulton, Douglas I Karl Hess ~ Rasmussen, Sheldon Richman, Murray Rothbard and I Plus essays and reviews by Brian Wright, Chester Alan Ar- others; and a short story by Erika Holzer. (80 pages) I thur, Stephen Cox, Walter Block, Erika Holzer and oth- I ers; and a short story by David Galland. (56 pages) November 1988 (Vol. 2, No.2): $4.00 I March 1988 (Vol. 1, No.4): $4.00 ."Taking Over the Roads," byJohn Semmens I ."The Crash of '87," perspectivesby Douglas Casey, Ron .''fhe Search for We The Living/' by R. W. Bradford I Paul, Murray Rothbard, Karl Hess, Mark Skousen, R.W. ."The Final Legacy of Ayn Rand," by Stephen Cox I Bradford, Adrian Day and Harry Browne. Also: a symposium on Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics fea­ I ·"The Majority vs The Majoritarian: Robert Bork on Trial," turing David Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Tibor Machan I by Sheldon Richman and others; plus writings by Jane Shaw, Allan Levite, I ·"Free Speech and the Future of Medicine," by Sandy Shaw John Dentinger, WaIter Block and others. (80 pages) I & Durk Pearson ! Plus reviews andarticles by Ethan O. Waters, Murray Roth­ January 1989 (Vol. 2,_No.3): $4.00 I bard, John Dentinger, Stephen Cox, Mike Holmes and •"High Noon for the Libertarian Party?" by C. A. Arthur lathers; and a short story by Raul Santana. (64 pages) • "TV Advertising and Minor Party Campaigns,"1;>y R. W. I Bradford I May1988 (Vol. 1, No.5): $4.00 • "Public Choice: A Useful Tool," by Jane S. Shaw .''fhe ACLU: Suspicious Principles, Salutary Effects," by I Also: writings by Leland Yeager, William Niskanen, John I William P.Moulton Hospers, Sheldon Richman and others; and a short story I ."Nicaragua:A Front Line Report," by Gary Alexander I by Jeffrey Olson. (72 pages)

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